Ballad of Netmakers
by bethsaida
Summary: He had spent his entire life fishing for souls, so he found it odd to be the one ensnared. Philip/Syrena, slight AU.
1. Missionary

The jungle stank of dirt and sweat and rotting pineapples. Ahead of him, the captain plodded through the brambles without showing any sign of fatigue. No birdsongs broke the stifling silence, their music suffocated by the jealous heat. The island was a veritable hell on earth. _But we choose our hells_, Philip reminded himself. Only Calvinist heretics felt otherwise.

Behind him, he could hear the slish-sloshing of the unlucky mergirl as her glass cage swung roughly over the ground, and he wondered if it was possible for a creature born in the water to feel seasick. Her four bearers did not seem to be deliberately rocking the makeshift aquarium, but neither did they act as though anything fragile or sensitive - or _alive_ - was inside. He wondered when they would stop, and if he would ever have a chance to talk to her.

He had told the captain once that every soul could be saved, and he believed it. He could not help thinking perhaps this girl had been sent to prove him right. If he could save her, this lost demon-child of the underworld, it might be enough to thaw the captain's cold heart. At the very least it would give some meaning to all the non sequiturs that seemed to be following him around lately. So while the back of his skull still throbbed where she had dashed it against the rocks, he found it surprisingly easy to forgive her for attacking him.

He noticed she stared at him more often than the others, as though attacking him had created a bond between them. He supposed that at least gave him something to work with. Making a connection was half the job of a missionary. It was more than he had accomplished with Blackbeard at any rate, he thought as he wiped the side of his face with his sleeve. He found it difficult to look into her eyes, though, full of sadness and anger and disappointment. She never hissed at him, but he found this silent assault harder to bear.

_She is a savage raised by savage creatures, and you overpowered her. She does not know any better._ It made sense in his head, but when he looked back at her again, he could not meet her hazel irises, staring into his as one betrayed.

* * *

><p>Dawn passed into morning, and morning trudged listlessly towards noon. The back of his shirt clung to his shoulders. They passed the carcass of a dead boar wreathed in flies, and the stench of decay threatened to overpower him. Being an educated man, he had read about the exact biological processes by which nature disposed of its dead, and the knowledge made the odor significantly worse. He began to envy the mergirl in her glass litter, blissfully ignorant of what she was missing.<p>

Turning back to her, he felt relieved that she was no longer staring at him with her wordless bitterness, until he realized she was not staring at anything at all. She had plastered the side of her face against the glass. Her nose and mouth just barely broke the surface, and she was drinking the air in short, agonized gasps. He knelt down beside her and pressed his fingers against the glass. To his surprise, her hand rose to meet his, though her eyes remained somewhere else.

"She needs air," he called out, to no one in particular.

"She's got water," Blackbeard answered without turning around. Philip had very little patience for people who ignored the obvious.

"She's suffocating. She needs _air_," he repeated.

A few of the crew glanced nervously at the cage, at Blackbeard, and at the ground. A good half of them probably would do something if they dared, but they didn't. Philip looked back at the aquarium. By then, her breath had fogged up the glass so much that he could no longer see her face. "You're killing her."

Blackbeard continued walking. Without thinking much about the repercussions, Philip grabbed the nearest sharp object he could find, which happened to be the quartermaster's sword. The quartermaster grunted in shock, but Philip had already shattered the lock and shoved his weather-beaten Bible underneath the glass lid. Possibly an act of blasphemy, but it had not done much good in his bag, as no one besides himself showed any interest in reading it. Stepping back, he waited for the captain's outburst. However, Blackbeard seemed intent on ignoring him. Like most of Philip's holy antics, he apparently regarded this latest act of defiance as not worth his attention. Philip glanced back down at the mergirl, whose face showed surprise and relief but very little else.

"Here," Philip said, handing the quartermaster back his sword.

"Don't tell me you were expecting her to thank you."

Philip favored the quartermaster with a half-hearted shrug. He supposed he had not expected much gratitude. She was still a captive, and a wild thing who might not even speak a word of English for all he knew.

"You'll be standing on the mast all the way back to London for that," the quartermaster reminded him.

"Standing or swinging?" Philip asked, not really caring if he got an answer. He glanced over his shoulder at the mergirl again, but she was not looking at him. She had closed her eyes, savoring the fragrance of the same jungle air he had found repellent. An almost childlike smile had blossomed on her sea-kissed mouth. In that moment of unvarnished delight, he knew that neither he nor Blackbeard nor any of the other men existed in her world. _Do all girls look that intoxicating when they smile_? Moving closer to the front, he tried to dismiss the thought before it could carry him away any further.

* * *

><p>The sound of shattering glass smashed the silence, and the mergirl spilled out of her cage in a rush of water and crystal shards. He did not see who or what had caused the cage to break. One of the bearers swore, and then all four dropped their now useless burden on the ground, sending another shower of broken glass onto her unprotected back.<p>

Gracelessly, she pulled herself into a sitting position. No one bothered to explain how she had suddenly sprouted legs. While he knew staring at them made him just as crude as the other sailors, it was equally hard not to stare at them. Her fingers grasped at the soil. Her drenched brown hair hung conveniently over her breasts, but she made no further effort to cover herself. It occurred to Philip that she had no idea she was supposed to care that she was completely naked.

Acting on instinct – he was not sure whether it was one of honor or jealousy – he peeled off his shirt.

"Here, you look…" He trailed off awkwardly as he draped it over her shoulders. "Cold," he finished. She eyed him with bewilderment. The expression unsettled him, her dark crinkled eyebrows, the half-smile threatening her lips, and the confused light in her golden-green eyes. _Either she has no idea what I said, or she knows exactly what I said and exactly how ridiculous it sounded._

Blackbeard strode over from the front. He cast a wintery gaze on the cage-bearers, but decided to direct his wrath instead at the mergirl and, by association, him.

"Walk," he said tersely. She tried. Grasping his shoulder with a painfully tight grip, she pulled herself to her feet. One of the crewmen nearby offered her an extra hand, which she momentarily accepted. But while her legs had all the muscle of a girl almost-grown, they had all the memory of a newborn colt. Her knees shook and dumped her back on the ground. Blackbeard regarded her coldly. "Walk or die."

"Can you put your arms around my neck?" Philip asked quietly.

She glared at him across her dirt-stained nose, her eyes now full of pain and wounded pride. "I do not ask for help," she said coldly.

"I know," he conceded. "But you need it."

She looked at the ground. Pressing her lips together, she complied. This left Philip with another dilemma. While she knew where to put her hands, he did not know where to put his. He had never carried a girl before, but somehow he had always imagined them being fully clothed. Awkwardly, he slid his right arm under her knees, then realized this would leave her hanging in a very uncomfortable and compromising position. He shifted his arm closer to her hips, until it was a little more than halfway up her thighs. Her skin felt cool and clammy. Carrying her was an unexpected relief from the suffocating heat. Accidentally, his fingers brushed against something rough. A strip of remnant scales peeled off her skin, and he felt her body stiffen in his arms.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to hurt you." She did not reply, but rested her head against his neck. Her hair smelled of salt tinged with seagrapes, and it filled him with an odd sense of loss, like a man drifting on open waves far away from home.

* * *

><p><em>Disclaimer: Not mine<em>


	2. Guardian

They walked through the morning into a blistering noon. She did not speak to him again, but her breath against his neck was strangely cool, as though it still carried traces of underwater mountains and coral reefs.

_I never once wanted to go to sea_, he thought as her damp head lolled against his shoulder. He had never been afraid of hurricanes or monsters, only the endless expanse of blue on every side, with no clear marker to distinguish east from west. A sailor could find his way looking at the stars. But if he fell into the depths, there would be no telling up from down, or right from death. Men drowned by disorientation. There were no straight lines in the sea.

Her body was not exactly light, but still lighter than something so waterlogged should be. Her legs flopped limply but remained stubbornly fixed together. He admired their staunch refusal to accept that they were no longer fins.

The land rose and fell beneath his feet, though he could not remember seeing it slope. He paused for a moment to look around. The trees appeared the same on every side, a never-ending labyrinth of green and gold and brown. He realized with a slight jolt in his stomach that he had no idea which way they had come. As he shifted her in his arms and started walking again, an irrational thought began to take shape in his mind. _We did not bring you to the land. We brought the land to you, and now you will turn everything into the sea._

* * *

><p>They did not pause to rest until well into the afternoon. Under different circumstances Philip might have taken the grueling pace as a form of personal punishment from Blackbeard, but he knew the captain's thirst for immortality was stronger than any dislike he felt for Philip. In the end, it was his dark-eyed daughter who called out the order to stop. Kneeling, he deposited the mergirl on the ground, trying to avoid making her shirt fall open, though he suspected he cared more about this than she did. They sat with their backs against a giant fig tree, listening to the sound of milling footsteps for several unbroken minutes.<p>

"Let me know if you get tired of carrying that thing," Blackbeard offered gallantly.

"She has a name." He had meant the words only for Blackbeard, but apparently he had said them loud enough for everyone's hearing. He looked over at the mergirl to see if she had anything to say about it, but she did not seem inclined to help.

Blackbeard chuckled. "Does she now? Do enlighten us."

He stared at her again, imploring. _Tell them your name. Tell them you're human, that you have a soul. Say anything, damn it. _She raised a dark eyebrow, as if to inform him that he had gotten himself into this position, and he could get himself out of it.

"Syrena." It was the first decent-sounding name that occurred to him. Though he hadn't had time to think about it before, he liked the double entendre, the quiet, serene beauty with the voice of a siren. But perhaps she thought it dull and uncreative, or even downright offensive. It was too late to worry about that now. "Her name is Syrena."

Blackbeard grunted thoughtfully, but what he was thinking was anyone's guess. "Enough rest," he announced. "We're moving out."

* * *

><p>She felt lighter now that most of the water had evaporated from her skin and hair. But while that eased his muscles, it troubled his thoughts, as the skin on her feet was starting to crack and peel. "I'll make sure we rest somewhere close to water tonight," he told her, although how he could guarantee that promise would be kept he had not yet figured out. He hoped something would occur to him on the way. If Blackbeard had anything to say about it, he would probably have a lot of time to mull it over. "My name is Philip, by the way. In case you were wondering," he added. <em>Or even if you weren't.<em>

"You shouldn't say that," she said abruptly. "No need to know."

This philosophy baffled Philip. "What do you tell people who ask for your name?"

"They don't. And we don't tell. Names are for family," she replied, as though this was something that should have been obvious.

"Oh," he said, feeling a little deflated. For a few minutes he had hoped carrying her halfway across the jungle might be enough to warrant him a place in her inner circle, but apparently it was not. "What would you like me to call you?"

"Syrena is fine," she said indifferently. _Well, that means she doesn't hate it_, he thought. He was learning to value small victories. He noticed she enunciated each word slowly, as though the act of forming words required serious concentration. He wondered if this was the product of her de-mermification, or if English really wasn't her first language. The first mergirl he had seen had spoken English perfectly well, but that was no reason to assume Syrena did. If sharing names wasn't even a common practice among her people, that did not bode very well for intraspecies communication.

"And suppose I'd named you something awful?" he asked. She held herself a little straighter in his arms.

"Not my name," she replied smoothly. "And…perhaps…I find new name for you." Philip groaned, not sure he wanted to know what name she would dream up for him.

* * *

><p>His earlier instincts turned out to be correct. They did not stop again until several hours after the first stars appeared, and night had sunk its teeth so deeply into the jungle that sunset was barely a memory of a half-forgotten whisper. It was the full moon that encouraged the captain to go on, its faint glow still lighting the way to his blasphemous dream.<p>

The cracked and peeling skin had spread up her legs until it was almost scraping her knees. As the rest of the crew passed out on the grass, he made for a nearby stream, looking for a spot deep enough where she could wash the cracks away. But he deposited her into the water prematurely. She winced as it hit her legs, and he realized he had never bothered to ask if she was a saltwater or a freshwater mermaid. "Can you swim in this?" he asked belatedly.

"Not…long," she said through clenched teeth. "Long enough." Her fingers clutched the grass as she lowered herself deeper, letting the water up to her waist. She gasped softly as it bit her skin. Philip lingered uncertainly, concern warring with common decency in his head.

"I'll just be over there…" he offered. "I won't look." She closed her eyes and nodded, lock-jawed. He accepted that she did not want him around with some relief. Moving off to a far corner of the glade, he listened for sounds of approaching footsteps in the dark, but heard nothing besides her soft splashing. For a delirious moment, it occurred to him that he could leave with her right now, and no one would know. He tried to imagine himself acting as her guardian angel, carrying her down hidden pathways through secret caverns. They could explore the entire island together. Perhaps, if they took long enough, she would learn to walk, and they could elude pursuit climbing the papaya trees or hiding beneath the swollen mangrove roots. He let a few scenarios play out in his head, but somehow each one always ended with Blackbeard and his crew dragging them back into the sun, back onto the tortuous road to immortality.

The light splashing behind him stopped, followed by a faint sigh as she pulled herself out of the water. Philip counted to thirty, and when he reached thirty counted to ninety. He turned and saw her standing by the stream, one hand clutching the trunk of a banana tree for support, the other clutching his shirt. She stood with her back to him, staring at the moon. He approached cautiously, not wanting to startle her out of her accomplishment, but also wanting to catch her if she stumbled. "Is that painful?" he asked.

"Sorry." She shifted her grip on the tree uncomfortably, looking down. "Your box. Lost. I'm sorry I lost your box."

"My box," he echoed blankly, wishing he could come up with a more eloquent response. It was clear speaking was still awkward for her. But she obviously cared very much about what she was trying to say, and he had no clue what she was talking about.

She shook her head. "Your box. That you used to…let the air in. I meant to give it back, but I forgot."

He leaned his elbow against the tree and stared at her, mystified. "You were worried about that?"

"It seemed important to you." She pulled his shirt closer around her, her cheeks coloring slightly in the half-light. "What was inside?"

"Just stories," he answered. He shrugged, trying to diffuse whatever stress it had caused her. It struck him as ironic that the loss of the Bible bothered her much more than it bothered him. In truth he had forgotten it was gone until she brought it up. He smiled lightly. "It doesn't matter. It wasn't doing much good anywhere else."

She tilted her head and peered at him thoughtfully. "That…must be why you're sad. I did wonder."

Philip blinked. She continued to hold him with her golden-green gaze. He had a feeling if he stared into her eyes long enough, they would draw every secret from him one drop at a time, and she would remain just as unfathomable to him. He looked away. "It is difficult to see something you care about treated with contempt," he said, without knowing exactly what or who he was referring to.

"Tell me a story." He looked back at her in surprise. She sat down with her legs crossed in front of her, as native children sometimes did in a school he had taught at four months and a lifetime ago. Her expression had softened from piercing to one of mild interest. "A story from your box. I want to hear one."

He ran his fingers through his hair, a bit flummoxed by her request. This was what he had wanted, what he had intended from the start, but the moment caught him completely off guard. He racked his brains for an appropriate place to begin. Most of the stories opened with, _In the days of King…_ or, _And he said to them…_ He seriously doubted she would be able to relate to any of those, or that she would particularly care to. Sitting down and folding his fingers over his legs, he cleared his throat.

"In the beginning of…everything, the world was an ocean," he began. "It was very dark, and very cold. There was nothing except the water, and a soft wind over the waves. The third thing that came into being was light. God…loved the light, and said it was good. But he loved the water too," he added quickly, suddenly conscious of possibly offending her. "And the wind. He's a very loving God."

He glanced over to see if she was in fact offended. She looked at him quizically. "Go on," she said politely.

"Right," he said. "Well. On the next day God divided the waters with a giant dome. He called the water below the dome sea, and the water above the dome sky." She looked very thoughtful at this, but offered no remark. He carried the story on through the next five days, through the land and the sun and the stars. She seemed pleased that God had created fish before all other animals, as though she thought this order of things only proper. When he got to the creation of man and the naming of the animals, he could sense she was starting to lose interest. Of course most of the names meant little to her. She had no more experience with a giraffe that he had with an electric eel. He decided to skip over the part about man having dominion over the beasts and birds and fish and let the story rest on the seventh day, when God did.

She stretched out on the grass when he had finished, folding her hands across her waist. "He didn't really divide the water, though," she said. "His dome stopped. At the horizon."

"You're right," he admitted. "He didn't."

"Philip." She raised her arm towards the canopy and contemplated her fingers. "Do you think if I could touch the sky, I could swim to the horizon and go home?"

Philip hesitated for a beat, debating whether he should tell her that some stories in his box weren't meant to be taken literally. "Possibly," he replied slowly. "Yes. You could."

She smiled and rested her head against his shoulder. "Thank you," she told him. "That was a very good story."

_That was not the lesson you were supposed to take from it, _Philip thought. But she had curled up by his side, her waist was nestled in the crook of his arm, and he found it difficult to feel depressed about anything. Her breathing slowed and softened. As she fell asleep on his chest, he was surprised to discover he did not care what the story meant to her, so long as it had made her happy.


	3. Heretic

"Philip."

The hand that jostled him awoke a fierce pain in his back. Opening his eyes, he felt the pain intensify and realized he had fallen asleep sitting up, with his back against the banana tree. He groaned and leaned forward. Syrena knelt in front of him, a mere fingerbreadth from his face, her enormous hazel eyes threatening to swallow him. "You groaned in your sleep too. Just like that," she informed him.

Leaning further forward, he massaged the back of his neck with his left hand. "I thought I was up on the mast again."

"Upon the where?"

"Never mind." He reflexively reached for his shirt before remembering that she was wearing it. Hoping to mask the gesture, he propped his arm against the tree trunk for support. "Did I snore?"

"Not loudly." She shook his arm again, none too lightly. "Come on. We have to go."

Ignoring the protests of his muscles, Philip straightened and took in his surroundings. It was still night and, as far as he could tell, just as dark as when they had fallen asleep. But since she had lived most of her life underwater, perhaps she had other ways of measuring the passage of time besides light. He glanced over at the camp but could not make out anything stirring. Syrena, however, was looking across the stream. "What is it?"

"_Católicos_," she said in a low voice. He squinted across the water but saw only shadows.

"How can you tell?" he asked, lowering his voice to match hers.

"Whispers carry. And theirs are easier to understand." _Oh, you're a Spanish mermaid_, he thought and, realizing how inane that remark sounded, was happy he had not voiced it aloud. Syrena tugged on his sleeve and pulled him towards the ground. "They are crossing soon. Crawl," she said softly into his ear.

Philip lowered himself onto his elbows. She made to do the same but, to his surprise and discomfort, she first began to slip his shirt off her shoulder. "Don't do that," he said quickly.

She looked at him, puzzled. "It's white. Too easy to see."

"Just…please. Don't." He could feel his face starting to flush in the dark. She looked irritated and anxious to be elsewhere. Evidently deciding it was not worth the time and effort to argue, she shrugged it back on and joined him on the ground. They slithered on the grass without speaking, making for the comforting shadows of thicker, denser trees. He noticed she crawled with her legs fixed together, as though she was still used to propelling herself forward with a tail. It made for very awkward and slow progress. He considered correcting her, but the sound of something snapping behind him put an end to that thought. Acting on reflex, he plastered his body over hers. They remained there in petrified silence, waiting for the footsteps to come closer or leave them alone. The footsteps grew louder, followed by the familiar click of a pistol and a voice, as deep and commanding as faith.

"Up. Now."

Cautiously, Philip rose to his feet, pulling Syrena with him. She stood at his side, her arm wrapped so tightly around his waist he could feel her fingers digging into his skin. They were shaking, but her legs remained steady. The dark-haired scout kept his pistol fixed on them. He flicked his eyes over Syrena's blouse and sighed.

"_Blanca_," he said, with a hint of exasperation.

* * *

><p>The camp of the Spaniards was richer than Blackbeard's. This was not particularly difficult, as Blackbeard's men had not even brought tents. The Spaniards had brought dozens, along with tables and tapestries and powder kegs. Philip was certain they passed at least two score soldiers and plainclothes mercenaries patrolling the borders. Every tent was decorated with a crucifix, and every door flap a rosary. To his eyes their mission resembled not so much an expedition as a holy war.<p>

Syrena was preoccupied with other matters. He had managed to lift her partway off the ground, so her toes still brushed the ground and she could move her legs in a passable imitation of walking. It seemed to work fine in the dark, but he suspected the illusion would fall apart once they reached more lighted areas. Their grim escort led them to a larger, darker tent near the center of the camp. Two armed sentries lifted the flap, and they passed through to a lighted room furnished with only a table covered in maps and a crucifix hanging on the wall.

The scout crossed to the other side of the table and eyed them through dark, thickset brows. They stood there in silence, Syrena with her heels back on the ground, still clinging to the back of his vest for support. He hoped the scout would attribute it to anxiety. "Your names."

"Philip Swift," he answered steadily. "And this is…" He was on the verge of saying_, And this is my sister, Syrena_, but he paused too long, and she stepped in.

"Syrena." Her voice was loud enough to be audible, but still husky and soft, giving her a demure, nonthreatening air. She raised her eyes briefly, then lowered them again. "His wife."

"Your position with the English pirates."

"Captives," Philip replied. "Or demoted chaplains, if you prefer."

This brought a smile to the scout's face, and a deep, rich laugh. "You are a heretic,_ inglés_, but I like you. I will be sorry to see you burn in hell." He laughed again and made for the door flap behind him. "Wait here," he instructed them. As there wasn't really anywhere for them to go, this instruction was not difficult to follow.

They sat down on the dirt floor. Syrena let out a sigh of relief, but her fingers were still clutching his vest tensely. He could hardly blame her. If the Spanish were chasing the Fountain of Youth, of course they would need a mermaid's tear for the ritual as well, and there was no reason to think she would get any better treatment from them than from the English. _Except that the Spanish have had three centuries of practice since the Inquisition, so they'll likely have more interesting methods._

"You could have told him you were my sister. I was going to," he said. She released his vest and fixed him with a pointed, matter-of-fact expression.

"We look nothing alike, Philip," she said pragmatically. She turned away, pulled her knees into her chest and stared determinedly at the floor. Her eyes were wide, and her knuckles white. Her behavior startled Philip, not so much because she looked terrified now, but because she had not looked properly terrified during their entire trek with Blackbeard.

"It can't really be any worse, can it?" he said, offering a lighthearted laugh that died stillborn at the sound of its hollowness.

She began to rock backwards on her heels. "They are…_católicos_," she whispered through her teeth. "_Católicos_."

"They don't know who you are." He tried to put a comforting arm around her shoulders, but she only hugged her knees more tightly and whispered again, "_Católicos_."

The door flap opened, and a second man emerged beside the scout, taller, with longer, well groomed hair that fell smoothly over his shoulders. His brown breeches and open waistcoat were simple and slightly worn, but he was cleaner than his companion. The scout stepped to the side. "Capitán Jorge Santiago Ramón."

Ramón nodded and gestured to Philip. "You. Come with me." Philip rose and gave Syrena's shoulder a reassuring squeeze that clearly did nothing to reassure her. When Philip had reached the table, Ramón nodded to the scout again, who crossed the room in three strides and jabbed something sharp into Syrena's neck. She stiffened and went limp.

"You didn't have to do that-" Philip protested. Ramón waved his hand dismissively.

"Your friend will hear everything we say otherwise, even if we speak in whispers on the other side of the camp. Yes, I know what she is," he said, observing the look of surprise Philip obviously had not masked as well as he had thought. "Do not take me for a fool."

He tossed the scout a blanket, which was promptly draped over Syrena's bare legs. Then he lifted the door flap and gestured for Philip to enter. Philip obeyed. The room was somewhat larger than the one he had left, but still sparsely furnished. A sleeping mat, a small table, a wooden chest and – Philip was hardly surprised – a crucifix made up the only furnishings. Ramón removed a pewter mug from the table, filled it with water and offered it to Philip. "You are dehydrated, _inglés_. Drink."

As if sensing Philip's suspicion, he took a swig from the mug himself and nodded towards the other room, where Syrena was lying passed out. "You can relax. My men do not debase themselves with animals. Drink." Philip swallowed the insult with the water. It was warm and brackish, but he had only tasted water sweeter once, after spending three days tied to a mast. Ramón laughed. "I believe you are a prisoner, if you have thirst like that."

"That description would fit at least half of Blackbeard's crew," Philip admitted. Ramón smiled thoughtfully over his mug.

"You care for her?" Ramón asked. Philip hesitated. There was a very obvious response to his question, the response Philip would have given if he had been asked that question twenty-four hours ago. _She has a soul. Of course I care for her._

"She is a child of God," Philip answered.

"She is an abomination from the days before Eden. If you are trying to convert her, you are wasting your time."

"You don't know that," Philip said.

"I do," Ramón replied steadily. "Just as I know that you, Philip Swift, are an abominable liar. But that is not what I brought you here to talk about." He lowered his mug and paced on the other side of the table. "You are a heretic, Swift. You have rejected the faith of your fathers, and for that, my faith tells me you must burn, in this world or the next. But for now, it appears God has put us on the same side." He placed his hands on the table and eyed him gravely. "Tell me you do not find this quest for eternal life the most dangerous kind of blasphemy."

"I think it's a bit stupid, really," Philip said honestly. "It's not even real immortality."

"You're right, it is not," Ramón agreed. "A cheap imitation. And since there is no way to know how many years your victim would have lived before being sacrificed, there is no way to test it. But stories have power. We both know this." He gripped the edge of the table more tightly. "We must change the story, you and I. The English must not take anything from the fountain, even if it is only a second-rate parlour trick."

Philip thought this was a splendid proposal. "You'll let us go, then. They can't do anything at the fountain without her-"

Ramón cut him off. "You misunderstand me, Swift. We do not simply need one expedition to fail. We need to destroy the entire myth. And we need a witness for the English. One who can be trusted."

Philip lowered his own mug, with a sinking feeling he knew where this conversation was headed. "You don't want to stop the English," he said slowly. "You want them to reach the fountain and find it a ruin." Ramón nodded grimly. "And you want to make sure I won't do anything to stop them either."

"There is not much chance you could," Ramón said. "But you are young and idealistic. And you see only what is immediately in front of you. You care more about the soul of a pretty little monster than the souls of your entire country."

"She's done nothing to hurt you," Philip countered, though he suspected this argument would carry very little weight with the Spaniard. He closed his eyes. "You're a man of faith. And you're asking me to sit by and let them torture her."

"Yes," Ramón answered economically. "For the good of your country, and the souls you claim to care so much about. Let Blackbeard reach the fountain, and let his entire crew carry back the message that it is gone."

Philip felt his head beginning to throb. It throbbed from being dashed against a rocky shore after an explosion, it throbbed from heat exhaustion after walking halfway through the jungle, and now it throbbed from having a conversation with a man whose sense of divine purpose was far more unshakable than his own. "Suppose I have feelings for the suffering of even a single soul."

Ramón shrugged. "Don't have them," he suggested. "We Catholics are very good at self-denial. A virtue people on your island sadly have lost." He looked down and drummed his fingers against the table restively. "Go back and tell your story of how the blasphemous fountain was destroyed. A survivor from Blackbeard's ship will not lack an audience. Preach whatever doctrine you like after that. Help us in this, and I am prepared to offer you passage back to England. You can go home, _inglés_."

_Home._ For a moment, it was a very tempting prospect. He had done little good out here, and what he could offer Syrena seemed like mere farce. He could perhaps comfort her, temporarily, but he could not stop the designs Blackbeard and his daughter had against her. His experience aboard the _Revenge_ should have taught him that some souls were better left alone. He would do better ministering to those who wanted salvation. _And yet if I went home like this, could I look at my reflection in the glass again?_

"My home is with the lost," Philip answered, setting his mug firmly on the table. Ramon chuckled grimly.

"It is still a day's journey to the Fountain. Much can happen in a day." The Spaniard downed the rest of his mug. "You should return to the English pirates now. Or you could try to escape, but my men will be following you, and they have orders to shoot you if you do – you, not her. You are both part of the story now, and we have a vested interest in keeping you there."

"And exactly how long is she a part of your story?" Philip asked darkly.

"That depends partly on you," Ramón replied. "But you would not be doing her any favors by protecting her from the English. If she survives, I would promise her a quicker death, nothing more." He waved his hand again in dismissal. Philip started to lift the door flap when Ramón spoke again.

"Think carefully, _inglés_. That creature cannot survive more than two days away from the sea. Even if you could walk with her, or dance with her, or make love to her, she could never belong to you. Any children of yours she might carry in her belly would die unborn every time she returned to her true form. And while you are thinking about all of those things, think on this. Any wounded animal will love the hand that protects it. Do not make the mistake of assuming she would do the same for you."

Philip crossed the outer room to where Syrena lay, exactly as he had left her. She looked more fishlike asleep, flopped limply on her side with her lips slightly parted, her skin still cool and clammy. Touching the side of her cheek softly, he scooped her up in his arms. As he left, the scout stopped him outside the tent. He looked at Philip hopefully. "There is no chance I can convince you to accept the true faith?" he asked.

"None," Philip replied. "But if the Calvinists are right, I'm sure we'll both see each other again in hell." The scout's face fell in resignation.

"Yes," he said with a sad smile. "Pity that they are wrong, and we are right."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Thanks to everyone who's been reading this so far. I've loved all the helpful/encouraging comments. On a sidenote, if there are any Catholics reading this chapter who were offended, my only defense is that I'm Catholic too. _


	4. Exile

"I would like you to tell me a story, Philip."

They were stretched out on the grass in the glade again. The thin streak of grey sky in the east hinted that morning was close behind. Philip could faintly make out glimmers of muskets in the trees where the Spaniards had watched them go. Beside him, Syrena sat with her arms folded inside his shirt. She had not asked what had happened during the hour or so she had been unconscious, but, aside from a groggy and slightly disheveled appearance, the drug did not appear to have hurt her.

Philip folded his hands across his lap. "Once, many thousands of years ago, there was a shepherd boy named David," he began. For some reason he found the words flowing much more easily than they had a few hours ago. "He loved the Lord, and his father, and his seven older brothers. But besides all of them, the thing he loved best was playing his harp in the forest while tending his father's sheep. It happened one afternoon that the king of his country fell gravely ill. His best physicians could do nothing, but since the king loved music, they sent for the boy David to sing for him. David came-"

"David was a singer?" Syrena's head shot up in surprise.

"Yes," Philip answered, a little startled at the unexpected alarm on her face.

"Then I do not-" She broke off and looked down. Her face flushed. Apparently embarrassed at her sudden outburst, she amended the sentence to a more polite form. "Then, please, tell a different story."

"All right," Philip said uncertainly. He wasn't sure why she disliked stories about singers, but he saw no reason not to appease her. He began again. "Once, not quite so many thousands of years ago, there was a young man named Daniel. He had been carried a long way from his home to an empire called Babylon. But God had given him a great gift, the gift of interpreting dreams. This gift won him favor in the royal court. Eventually King Darius was so pleased with Daniel, he made him his right-hand man. The king's councilors were…rather less pleased."

"Obviously," Syrena scoffed. She flexed her feet in the grass, watching the blades fold between her toes.

"Yes, I suppose it was," Philip said with a shrug. "Daniel was a foreigner, and they didn't like that he had beaten them. So they devised a trap. They convinced the king to make a law forbidding his subjects to pray to anyone except him for a month. Daniel, of course, still prayed to his God three times a day. And King Darius was forced to send Daniel into a den of lions in punishment for his insubordination."

"Adenne of Liance…" Syrena repeated slowly. "Where's that?"

"Lions. They're animals. Like…" Normally he would have said _a giant cat with hair_, or something similar, but in her case that probably wouldn't have helped. "Like Blackbeard on four legs," he suggested offhand.

"Oh." She continued to finger the grass, as though that description made perfect sense. Then again, he supposed he could have said anything and she would have believed him. He looked down and continued.

"King Darius was devastated. He was convinced he'd sent Daniel to his death, but he had signed the law, and he couldn't see a way out. He didn't sleep or eat for the entire night. But when he went to the den in the morning, Daniel was alive, and the lions were sitting at his feet. God had sealed their mouths shut."

Syrena looked a bit impressed by this, but only a bit. "God would have done better to stop the councilors earlier," she remarked after a beat.

"Well, the king did throw them into the lions' den afterwards. The lions tore them to pieces," Philip told her. Syrena wrinkled her nose.

"That's disgusting." She considered this for another moment, and then said thoughtfully, "Poor lions."

Philip threw back his head and laughed. He couldn't explain why, but for some reason that remark sounded more hilarious to him than all the satires and comedies written on England and the continent since the dawn of the printed word. Syrena was starting to look concerned. Philip knew if he didn't stop laughing soon, he would draw unwanted attention from the rest of the camp.

"Forgive me, Syrena, I just…" Forcing himself to subside proved to be one of the more difficult tasks he'd had to perform that day. "I haven't had a reason to laugh like that in a very, very long time." _Longer than I care to remember._

"I did not mean to be amusing," Syrena said.

"I know." He shook his head, unable to suppress another soft laugh. "I'm sorry, Syrena." She smiled hesitantly. A rebellious lock of hair had fallen across her nose. He paused to brush it aside. For half a moment, he wondered what would happen if he leaned forward and kissed her. His hand lingered on her temple. _A kiss from a mermaid will let a man breathe underwater_, he remembered vaguely. And suddenly, that was all it took for him to withdraw his hand and pull back. Scrum had nearly died trying to kiss a mermaid, and the one sitting beside him now had almost killed him. If she was kind to him now, it was only because she was a captive.

"The Catholics say you're a monster," he said quietly. "They say you're beyond redemption."

"And you?" she asked softly.

"I believe you're one of God's own creations," he said. "Capable of good or evil, as you choose."

She lowered her eyes. He had a feeling this ambiguous answer did not fully satisfy her, but she let the matter slide. Then she knotted her eyebrows, frowning. "Catholics," she repeated. "Cath…lix. _Cath_-licks." She seemed intrigued by the way the word rolled off her tongue, and Philip had a sudden suspicion that she had no idea what the term meant.

"Syrena," he said slowly, "what is a _católico_?"

She slid away from him and pulled her knees into her chest. A hollowness rose in her eyes. "A netmaker," she answered. "One of the siren kings." She was silent for a very long time. Philip wondered if he should say something to break it, but decided if she wanted to tell him more, he wouldn't have to ask. She began to wind a few strands of dark hair in her fingers absentmindedly. He waited.

"I saw them once. A long time ago, I think. I didn't live here then." She closed her eyes, letting her fingers drop and pulling his shirt closer around her. "They were standing on the shore. Twelve of them. Just standing and singing. Very strange words. I never heard words like them anywhere else. But the song was beautiful…beautiful and lonely."

She opened her eyes. He was surprised to find they were glistening. She blinked fiercely, and they were dry again. "A few of us began to cry. It is not easy, to make merpeople cry. But they kept singing, and we kept coming closer…" She crossed her arms over her knees. Tilting her head, she stared into the empty spaces between the trees. Her face looked almost dreamlike now. "They built their bonfires just beyond the reach of the tide. They were very clever that way."

She turned back to him, and he watched the dream fade slowly from her eyes. "The netmakers do not want tears or kisses or immortality. They want only to sing, and to kill."

Staring into her eyes, for a moment Philip could imagine the sight, sound and acrid stench of a hundred merfolk roasting on the beach. He did not ask her how she had managed to escape, and she did not elaborate. If it was anything like his experiences of late, it was probably half a matter of luck. The idea that there could be siren kings counteracting the work of the siren queens, luring unsuspecting seafolk to their deaths, had never occurred to him. But if any music had the power to enrapture a mermaid, he was not surprised it would be a Gregorian chant.

"I think I understand now," he said. He twisted his cross in his right hand. "When you attacked me, that night on the rocks. You must have seen this and thought I was a _católico_ as well. That was it, wasn't it?" He wanted very badly to give her an out, to believe for a moment that she wasn't the monster Ramón and Blackbeard and the rest of them seemed to think she was. But she shook her head.

"No," she insisted softly. "Not you. You are different. You _protect_."

_You protect. _Philip let the sentence circle in his mind for a few seconds. She shook her head in aggravation, as though the words had not come out the way she had intended. As though, in her desire to set the record straight, she had forgotten the proper order. _You protect. Protect...you._

Philip closed his eyes, feeling the weight of his ignorance crashing over his shoulders like a monstrous wave. The toppled lighthouse, the hand that yanked him to the ground and then inexplicably let go, all the things he should have put together but his confused emotions and preconceptions had forbidden. "You pushed me down, out of the way," he said. She nodded.

_I am so sorry_, he thought, but did not dare say aloud. To tell her he had not meant to stab her would be a lie. He had meant to stab something, but he had not known it would end the way it did. At that moment, he had not even processed that the remains of an exploding lighthouse had rained down on the spot where he had been standing and he had escaped death by mere inches. That he was sorry was true, and it was also useless. He could ask God for forgiveness, but to ask her, right now, when she was facing torture and imminent death, struck him as supremely selfish. _I did not realize until now the soul that needed saving was mine._

"They're going to sing again," she said, interrupting his thoughts. "After they destroy the fountain. They are going to stand on the shores and call the mermaids back. I heard them whisper. Before I woke you."

Someday, he thought, he would have to ask her about mermaids' ultrasensitive hearing. The legends had never mentioned that. He wondered how long it took her to age, and what _a long time ago_ meant to a mermaid. There was so much about her he did not know. "The song was so beautiful, Philip…" she said, a half-wistful look on her face. "I never want to hear it again."

The sky was turning pink. Behind him, he heard the sound of the quartermaster kicking a dozen men out of slumber. Heavy footsteps tore the stillness, as the rising sun tore the protective cover of night. A heavy sword clanked cheerfully in its scabbard. Blackbeard stood over them with his hands on his hips, his thick, graying brows knotted with impatience.

"Let's go, clergyman," he said brusquely. As Philip sat unmoving, Blackbeard's gaze turned from impatient to patronizing. They both knew he was fighting a losing battle. "Unless you'd rather someone else carry her for a bit," he added, calling Philip's bluff. After a beat he turned away and walked back toward the camp. Beneath the clinking of his sword, Philip thought he heard the man whistling.

"Syrena, I am-"

"It's all right, Philip," she said, placing her arm around his shoulder. _No. It's not all right,_ he thought, even as he lifted her up and began to carry her obediently back towards camp. _I am King Darius carrying you to the lion's den._

She rested her head against his neck. Perhaps, to her, it was all right simply to know he did not think she had attacked him. But perhaps it was arrogant to think she truly cared what he thought of her. He shifted her weight carefully in his arms, glancing back only for a moment at the unseen army across the stream. On the other side, the horizon turned from rose to gold, glittering with the promise of eternity.


	5. Accomplice

The early morning mist lent an almost surreal quality to the campsite. Grumbling and groaning, the crew slowly roused themselves, their motions slow and heavy with the remnants of slumber. A couple early risers had started cooking fires on the damp ground. The smell of kindling and smoked bass drifted towards them. Stirred to wakefulness, his stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten anything substantial in more than a day, and he was famished. Syrena's face also looked more sunken in the sunlight, making him wonder when she had last eaten. "Do you eat bass?" he asked.

She wrinkled her nose at the cooking fires with distaste. "Not like that," she said.

Philip scanned the trees. His eyes fell on a few low-hanging avocados. In lieu of a knife, he used a decently sharp rock to slice one open and handed her the larger half. "You have to eat something," he told her.

She accepted the fruit, rotating it carefully in her hands. Bringing it closer to her face, she closed her eyes and breathed in slowly, experimentally. She looked surprised but not displeased by the scent, and evidently decided it was edible. They ate in companionable silence, neither one mentioning the events of the previous night. He wondered if she wanted to savor whatever time she had left, or if she wanted to forget it had all ever happened. The second possibility left him feeling slightly empty.

"Missionary." He looked up at the source of the raspy voice. Angelica shoved a bowl of dried fish into his hands. A limp, uncooked angelfish flopped over the top. "The scaly one's for her," she informed him, jerking her head at Syrena. "I thought she might prefer something fresh." Syrena glanced at Angelica, surprised at the unlooked-for thoughtfulness. Angelica nodded politely, but the idea of addressing the mermaid directly seemed to make her uncomfortable. She turned back to Philip. "Don't eat it too fast," she warned him, before walking back to join her father.

Syrena treated the angelfish with much less caution than the avocado. In a couple quick, precise cuts with her thumbnail, she detached the pectoral fin and peeled off a piece of meat near its head. It was a very small piece, and she held it in her mouth for several seconds, clearly wanting to make the flavor last as long as possible. She glanced over at Philip's bowl. "I don't understand how you eat that," she said, eyeing the charred meat with suspicion. "It loses its proper flavor."

"Try it," Philip suggested. He broke off a piece and offered it to her, but she shook her head, looking nauseated. Using her fingernails, she peeled off another strip of scaled flesh, carefully avoiding the bones. "How does yours taste?" he asked curiously.

"Salty," she replied, chewing thoughtfully. "Like men, but not so bitter."

Philip nearly choked. Beside him, Syrena let out something that sounded vaguely like a snort. When he looked back at her, her shoulders were shaking with amusement. "That really isn't funny," he told her.

"Your face was, just now," she noted, returning to her breakfast with a shrug.

Philip broke off a few chunks of avocado into the bowl to give the bland fish some flavor. Without anything else to do, he used the downtime to rethink their situation. Daylight, and the extra shot of energy from having food in his stomach, made his mind more alert than it had been last night. More than a few things didn't add up. By all rules of logic, the Spanish should not have been able to cross into their camp and slip away with Syrena without someone raising an alarm. Him, he would have understood – Blackbeard might have even personally thanked the Spaniards and considered himself well shot of Philip. But Blackbeard was too careful, and too paranoid, to let his guard slacken on his cherished mermaid. This morning, though, Blackbeard appeared cheerful and energetic. He looked like a man well-rested, not a man who had stayed up all night keeping watch over prisoners. Philip could only conclude that someone not Blackbeard had seen them depart with the Spaniards and had chosen to say nothing. _Either someone with Catholic sympathies_, he thought, _or someone who doesn't want Blackbeard to live any longer than he's already supposed to._

That they might have an ally in the camp did not give him the encouragement it should have. He was starting to learn that everyone had a game, and no one did anything out of noble altruism.

Rising, he cleaned out the last few bits of fish from his bowl and walked in the direction of the mess. A few of the crew greeted his arrival with mirth. "You look beat, clergyman," the quartermaster said, slapping him on the back. "She keep you up all night?"

Philip ignored the remark, knowing a response would be useless at best and counterproductive at worst. If he lost his temper, Blackbeard might very well follow through on his promise to turn Syrena over to the care of someone else. He handed his bowl to the cabin boy who, in the absence of the cook, had taken over kitchen duty. He did not seem pleased with the assignment, as Blackbeard had become something of a holy terror to him after he had roasted the last cook.

"Where's the first mate?" Philip asked quietly, when the crew seemed to decide they were no longer interested in him. The cabin boy looked up warily and glanced toward the western edge of the glade, where the sun hadn't quite managed to infiltrate. Angelica was talking to Blackbeard, though they were far enough away to be inaudible. After several seconds, Blackbeard nodded to his daughter. She nodded back and strode off, looking pleased about something. "Thanks," Philip said, placing an encouraging hand on the boy's shoulder.

He intercepted her on the outskirts of the camp. Her face fell with displeasure when she saw him, but she did not look surprised. She nodded towards a spot farther away from the camp, where they could talk more privately. Whatever she thought he was going to say, she evidently had been preparing for it for some time. He followed her beyond the edge of the glade.

"I know you don't like this, Philip," she said in a low voice, once they were out of earshot. "I would not make you do it if I didn't think-"

"I can't redeem your father, Angelica," he said bluntly. She stared at him, surprised at the abrupt turn in the conversation. Her face clouded over with disappointment and disbelief.

"You said you believed every soul could be saved," she protested.

"If he doesn't want to be saved, there's nothing I can do," Philip said. He threw up his hands in defeat. "He's chosen this. He's chosen to sell his soul for a chance at a couple more decades of youth. I can't change that."

"He has less than two weeks to live. He is terrified." She dug her foot into the ground and fingered the hilt of her sword restively. "He needs time. Time to recognize his crimes, and to atone. This would give him that."

There were a great many _if's_ inherent in that statement, Philip thought, none of which justified the path they were currently taking. Angelica obviously thought otherwise. She glanced behind them at Blackbeard's bulky figure, striding confidently through the camp as a man assured of fortune's good will. He was not old, but he was no longer young. It was not hard to believe that behind his bold swagger, such a man could be masking a fear of aging, and of dying. "I also want more time with my father," she told him in a softer voice.

"You already have a father," he reminded her.

She glared at him fiercely. "I don't want a father in heaven, Philip. I want one here," she insisted. Philip eyed her carefully.

"Even if he doesn't want you?" he asked.

Angelica blinked. "He does," she said, though a fleeting look of uncertainty gave the lie to her words. She set her jaw resolutely. "A man like him isn't allowed to show affection. I understand that, which is why he loves having a daughter like me."

Philip held out his hands, incredulous. "Open your eyes. He couldn't care less about you."

"He trusts me," she said adamantly. "He chose me for his first mate and put me in charge of his crew."

"He stood you in front of a cliff and fired two pistols at you," Philip revised.

"Unloaded pistols," she maintained. She looked at him patiently. "I will not give up on my father, even if you have. But for her sake, this would be much easier if you would find out how to make her cry."

"And what about the blood sacrifice?" Philip persisted. "You do realize you're encouraging him to murder someone else?"

She smiled indulgently. "Think of the numbers, Philip. An innocent man will go to heaven, whether my father kills him or not. If my father dies in two weeks, he will go to hell. Which do you think God would prefer to have, one soul or two?"

There were several arguments to make against that sort of logic, but Philip had a strong suspicion none of them would work on her. He sighed in exasperation. "You really couldn't have chosen a different notorious pirate to claim as your father?" he asked.

"If I had, you would not be alive to have this conversation," she pointed out, which, Philip had to admit, could very well be true. Gracefully claiming victory, she began to head back towards camp, but something else tugged at his mind.

"Angelica," he said abruptly. She turned around. "Who kept watch last night?"

"We took it in two shifts," she answered. "I was supposed to take the first one, but my father insisted on taking my place. He said it was a father's duty to watch over his daughter, not the other way around." She smiled with a hint of triumph as she said this, evidently seeing it as proof of paternal affection. Philip had his own opinion about this, but he didn't have the energy to try to disillusion her anymore.

"Who took the second?" he asked.

She raised her shoulders indifferently. "The quartermaster," she replied.

She turned on her heel and walked back into the glade. Philip followed her, meandering through the restive crew until he reached Syrena. She was sitting at their breakfast tree, holding the broken avocado in her lap. Her fingers traced the rind curiously. She held it above her head for a moment and let it drop to the ground. "So empty," she remarked with a small frown. "It shouldn't fall. Light things should float."

_Everything falls here_, he considered telling her. "You're right," he said instead. "It's all upside-down on land."

She inclined her head, seeming to agree with his assessment, but her frown softened. "Not you," she said. She did not go into any more detail, leaving him to puzzle over the odd compliment. Even if there were a tactful way to ask for an explanation, there was no time. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder again. Now that the sun had claimed full mastery of the sky, the crewmen were growing noisier, and the captain was impatient to be off.


	6. Inquisitor

"The question is, does she fancy you?"

Philip raised his head slowly, feeling the weight of two lifetimes hanging on the answer. A cool breeze drifted past his face that smelled faintly of rosemary. His father stood at the window with his hands clasped behind his back, waiting patiently for his answer. "I don't know," Philip said, though he knew this to be false.

"Then you're blind, or a very bad liar," his mother observed with a light smile. "You only have to look at her to know she's completely infatuated." Like most affectionate mothers, Lydia Swift tended to view all her son's admirers with a half-critical eye. No girl ever managed to be quite good enough; they were either too shallow or too simple or too reserved. But beneath her maternal pride, Philip saw a concern in her eyes that had grown more common in the last few years, a lingering fear that her son would find himself alone. _A clergyman ought to marry_, she had told him once. _You have chosen a difficult life. You should not have to bear it on your own._

He shook his head. "I have little to offer her. I will never be rich-"

"You'd be surprised how many girls don't find that objectionable," his mother replied, without taking her eyes off her sewing. His mother was qualified to make that comment. At nineteen, she had turned down several more affluent prospects to marry Brandon Swift, a tutor of classics and philosophy with a modest income, but who was by no means wealthy.

"We are too far apart. She's only sixteen," he said.

His father laughed congenially. "And you're only twenty-six. Ten years is hardly a scandal, Philip." Philip had to acknowledge the truth of this. In his own hamlet, there were people who had married with fifteen or even twenty years' difference in their ages. "If it's her youth and naiveté you're worried about, she showed good enough judgment casting her eye on you. You're a sensible man. You'll be able to make good decisions for her."

His father looked him over with approval, but he seemed to sense Philip was not ready for this talk of husbandry. Letting the matter slide from his face, as easily as if they had been discussing the weather, he removed his spectacles and gently grasped his son's shoulder. "No one's expecting you to propose to her today. Take your time. Get to know her better, without the heroics, and then make up your mind."

Philip glanced out the window, letting his eyes roam across the familiar green slopes, broken by the occasional stray poplar. That Darcy Whitmore fancied him was his own doing. He had helped her out of some trouble a few months ago – a small thing, he had thought then. One of her younger brothers had caught a fever, and her father was away in Brighton for business, so he had ridden twelve miles into Falmouth for a physician. Then the illness had spread to three of her other siblings, and he had spent several afternoons helping her family make poultices and electuaries of dried herbs and honey to speed their recovery. He had naively assumed being a clergyman would be enough justification, but the fact that he was a young, unmarried clergyman, and his parishioners desperately in want of romance, had encouraged the invention of other motives.

The hardest part was, he could not say they were being unreasonable. Nor could he deny that – in a purely platonic way - he genuinely liked Darcy Whitmore. She was warm, affectionate, loyal, and everything else a clergyman could wish for in a wife. A few times he had tried to imagine growing old with her, preaching sermons on Sunday morning, taking walks with her in the evening. Perhaps they would have a few red- and golden-haired grandchildren when age had bleached the sun's colors from their own hair. He knew it would not be a bad life. _But I could give her only a half-love, and that would be worse than no love at all._

He turned away from the window and stood up. "I've made it up already," he said. In truth he had made it up more than a week ago, but he had been putting off the moment when he would have to make it a reality. "I'm going to the Americas. There's a ship called the _Widow's Dream_ leaving from St. Ives next Friday. I booked passage on it two days ago."

Lydia Swift paled. "You never wanted to go to sea before, Philip," she said, clutching the arm of her chair.

"And I don't want to now," he said. "But she needs to forget me. And I need to go somewhere I can be more useful."

His mother nodded. "Where will you go?" she asked him softly.

"Barbados," he replied, glancing out the window again. "Slaves and slavers need the Gospel more than anyone I can imagine. I'll only be gone for a couple years. Three at most," he promised.

Lydia Swift accepted her son's decision, as she accepted almost everything he did. The days when he needed mothering had ended some time ago, beyond both their remembrance. He had come into maturity early. When the other boys his age were still tying cats' tails together and trying to make them jump over flames, Philip had been mending their singed paws and teaching them Greek. Now her reproofs were made mostly in jest. But it was difficult for her to part with her only child, and Philip could not help feeling he was abandoning her.

He passed Darcy's cottage once the night before he left. She was bathing her baby sister in a wooden wash bucket, humming softly to herself. Her hair was tied away from her face with a green scarf. A few red strands had fallen loose over her eyes. They made a pretty picture together, the oldest and the youngest of eight children, which was far too many for a man of her father's income. _I am sorry I am not the one to call you from your window and carry you off into the sunset_, Philip thought.

"Your kindness is a dangerous thing, Philip," his father told him, just before he embarked on the _Widow's Dream_. "Possibly the most dangerous gift you possess."

Philip had wondered then, if he ever met someone he did care for beyond the instinct of compassion, how he would show it. Having been raised to be kind to everyone, he did not know how to show affection for just one person. Perhaps that made him even more naïve and inexperienced than Darcy Whitmore. But he had lived most of his life alone, so the prospect of living the rest of it alone did not worry him as much as it worried his mother. Back then he believed if he could love God and love mankind, he would not need any other kind of love. Later, he would look back and think that belief was the most naïve thing about him.

* * *

><p>"The question is, does she fancy you?" Blackbeard echoed, his gravelly voice jerking Philip back into the steaming jungle. His vision had blurred somewhat, and his eyes stung where large droplets of sweat lingered. An impossibly large fly hovered near his ear, buzzing an affirmative. <em>No. She cannot,<em> Philip thought, though the insect continued to insist the opposite.

Syrena sat less than five paces away from him, returned once more to her element. Her legs had duly merged into her natural coral-colored fishtail. But the ropes on her wrists held her so high, the water just barely passed where her knees would have been. Her scales looked duller than he remembered, as though they knew the water lapping against them was a ruse and refused to play along. _Not enough to survive. Just enough to make the dying slow. _

She had not looked at him since the quartermaster had dragged her into the water. He had not even realized they were stopping until two crewmen seized him from behind, causing her to spill onto the ground into the quartermaster's waiting arms. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he had assumed they would keep walking until they reached the fountain, and perhaps by then some divine revelation would show him a way out. He remembered reading that God's messengers were not supposed to worry what they would say or do, but to trust that the Spirit would inspire them at the proper time. But they had brought her to her final destination, and he had nothing. In her lowered eyes, he read that she had known this moment was coming, that she had always expected him to fail. She looked very, very tired.

_I lied. Not every soul can be saved. Yours cannot._ A year ago, Philip would never have imagined uttering those words. He had been called to redeem men, not to condemn them. But a year ago he had been somewhere safe, where it was easy to forgive, because no one had ever really wronged him. Everything was so much harder out here in the wild, in a place where mermaids were just as real as murder.

A dull pounding had begun to drum in his ears. _Look at that. A man formerly of faith. _It was not his faith that had been shaken, Philip thought. The deepest recesses of his heart told him God had already forgiven Blackbeard, and for the first time he could remember he disliked that idea. It was not enough anymore, to save a soul or to save a life. His teachers had told him a man of God must speak, even if no one listened. So he would speak for her, just as he had spoken for the cook, because life mattered. But in a small piece of his heart that he had not known existed, he wanted something very unmissionary-like. A part of him wanted to say the words aloud just so that she would hear him. _That vile creature is worth a hundred of you._

"You care for her." Philip had looked away, knowing full well that was enough to confirm the accusation. Blackbeard smiled at him, as though they were old friends sharing a secret, as though for once he was glad of Philip's company. "You fancy her."

_Fancy _was not the word Philip would have chosen to describe it, but it could very well be accurate. Had he seen himself now a few months ago, or even a few days ago, he probably would have been skeptical of his feelings as well. An exotic beauty on a mysterious island, any reasonable person would understand how a man could imagine himself in love with her. Two days was such a very short time…and yet two hours was more than enough time to destroy a man's world, Philip thought, remembering the morning the_ Queen Anne's Revenge _had arrived at a mission in Barbados.

"The question is, does she fancy you?" He raised his head. The fly tickled the inside of his ear, its incessant buzzing only making the silence more palpable. Syrena looked at him briefly, then, and he thought he saw a trace of alarm flash behind her eyes. _No. She cannot_, he told himself sternly, as much as a growing part of him wanted to believe otherwise.

A moment later a rough hand dragged him to the ground and the quartermaster's blade was at his throat, reminding Philip that the enemy of his enemy was not necessarily his friend. Whatever game the quartermaster was playing with Blackbeard obviously did not include helping either of them.

"Father, your soul-" Angelica protested.

Blackbeard was not listening; his attention was given over entirely to Syrena. She was not looking at any of them now. In his heart he knew she was somewhere else, beyond any of their reach. It was arrogant to think he could make a lasting impression on someone who had lived for centuries or millennia, for all he knew. Still, every moment they were threatening him was another moment they were not threatening her. "Syrena, if you could manage a tear, I'd be very grateful," he said, while his mind thought,_ Cry for them. Cry for them now before he decides to burn you alive._

Blackbeard's flask hovered just below her left eye. For a moment her jaw shook, and her eyelids fluttered perilously. He wondered if she was trying to cry, or if she was trying not to cry. Then, as quickly as it began, it subsided. The quartermaster jerked Philip's head backwards. A searing pain just above his collarbone - strange, he had always thought it was supposed to cut higher - was followed by a light sting in the back of his shoulder. His eyelids grew heavy. A thick black cloud swallowed the jungle and the quartermaster and Syrena.

_Was it worth it?_ a small voice in his mind asked, as he felt the ground disappear beneath him. _If your death makes her cry, will it have been worth it?_

Before leaving for Barbados, he had imagined the possibility that God would call him to sacrifice his life for someone else's. At the time he thought his death would glorify God, and that would be enough to put his mind at peace. Now, he wanted to know if she would be all right, or if she would face an even more painful death than his. He wanted to stay just a little longer, to be with her even if he could do nothing to help her. And beneath that, he wanted to know the answer to Blackbeard's question. That strange and new piece of his heart that had nothing at all to do with his religious calling wanted the answer to be _yes_, and feared that it was, _Yes, but not enough._


	7. Pawn

_A/N: I don't remember if Tamara gave her name in the movie or if it was only listed in the credits afterward. "Slight AU" in this case can be loosely translated to mean I've only seen the film once, so it's possible I've gotten a few plot details wrong._

_For the purposes of this story, Tamara is between eight hundred and nine hundred years old. Syrena is significantly younger._

* * *

><p>The coming to was painful, and he did not immediately open his eyes. The ground felt rough and sharp beneath his body, as though a thousand jagged rocks were piercing his arms and chest and the side of his face. Somewhere nearby, the sound of waves lapping against the ground called him back to the world of the living. Slowly he lifted his head, but in the darkness he could make out little.<p>

Groaning softly, he pulled himself to his knees and ran his fingers across the gash in his neck. The wound was still soft. It stung and bled, but the quartermaster's blade had missed his artery. Deliberately or accidentally, he did not know. He had seen the quartermaster's extensive experience slitting throats firsthand, so he doubted it was the latter. But if he still lived, it could only mean God had more work for him to do. The countless twists his life had taken in the last few weeks had made Philip give up trying to fathom the mind of God. His instincts made his path clear enough, though. _I have only one mission now. _

He straightened and raised his head higher so he could take in more of his surroundings. Apparently they had dumped him on the edge of the forest, where the soil began to give way to the rocky shore. The soft lapping came from a tidal pool a few paces away. A girlish figure peered out of the waves, studying him with mild interest. Her body was propped halfway out of the water, and behind her a gold wisp of a fin glimmered in the moonlight.

"You are lost, missionary," she observed.

Philip stared at her through heavy eyes. Though his vision was still cloudy from unconsciousness, she was close enough that he could make out her face. Her white-blonde hair and clear turquoise eyes sent ripples through his memory. But more than anything else he recognized the way she folded her arms over the ground and cocked her head slightly to the side, curiously, as a bystander would contemplate some exotic beast in a cage, knowing himself to be perfectly safe on the other side of the bars. "You are the one who sang."

"I am," she said with a smile. "And you are still lost. Would you ask for my help?"

His rational side warned him not to trust her. He had not forgotten what had ensued after her song, when the boat had capsized and the chaotic bloodfest had started. But it was possible that while she had no reason to care for him, she might care for one of her kin. And at the moment he couldn't see any other options. "I am looking…for a mermaid. One trapped on land."

"Yes," she said sweetly. "The dark-haired one from Mallorca. She came to us a decade or so ago. So thin, and so homesick." Her lips curved into a pensive frown. "She never told us her name, though I offered to tell her mine."

"She's Syrena," Philip said automatically, his voice sounding more emphatic than he had intended. There was no reason, after all, for her to adopt the name he had given her. She used it because it was convenient, and because it served as a cover that allowed her to keep concealing her true name. But she had accepted it so easily around him, he found it hard to imagine her by anything else.

The mermaid seemed to find this highly amusing. She twisted her golden tail sinuously in the water, her eyelashes glistening with ocean drops. "You aren't very creative, missionary. But I am curious…what name would you think of for me?"

Philip let the question slide, more intrigued by what she had said a moment earlier. He remembered Syrena's adamant insistence that names were reserved for family. If this girl had offered to reveal her name, it probably signified her intent to adopt Syrena into her own family – an invitation Syrena had clearly declined. But why she would come here in the first place, and why she would stay so long, were questions he could not answer. He rubbed his fingers against his forehead, willing his drugged mind to focus. "There's a pool somewhere. Toward the center of the island."

"The pool of sorrows…" she murmured thoughtfully, glancing to the side at nothing in particular. "They are very foolish. They need only ask, and a single tear would give them centuries without a chalice or a human sacrifice."

Philip blinked in surprise. "Why is that?"

"What is given is always more powerful than what is taken." She shook her hair lightly, sending a fine spray of seadrops onto the surface of the water. "Of course, no sane mermaid would ever make such a gift. Men are rather pathetic creatures. I can't imagine wanting one around for that long. Though killing them can get a bit tiresome as well," she conceded. She gave her opinion matter-of-factly, without seeming to care if she had offended him or not. _Did you only offer to help me because you were bored?_ Philip wondered.

Brushing the thought aside, he leaned closer, deciding if she wanted to eat him she could have done it while he was unconscious. "But you know how to get back there from here," he said more urgently.

"I do," she replied. Her fingers brushed the tips of the grass with casual disinterest. "But why should I trust you, missionary? Aren't you the one who carried her there?"

"That…was not what I wanted," Philip said evenly.

"And aren't you the one who pinned her down as she tried to escape?"

Philip looked at the ground. It felt more than a little unjust, to be tried and measured by someone who had spearheaded the killing of almost a dozen people in a single night. But he could not deny his role in her capture, even if it had been inadvertent. He looked back up and met her eyes directly. "Yes. I was."

Her eyebrows rose a micron. For a moment she looked impressed by his blunt answer. Then she propped her chin on her hands and smiled, and it was gone. "Syrena…It suits her. A foolish name for a foolish girl. But I like her, for all that her ideas are a bit confused and backwards." She sighed. "Waste of perfectly good grief. I would have shown her how to use it properly, but all she wanted was a safe place to remember, and to forget." With a shrug, she returned to plucking the grass.

"You realize you've chosen a flawed mermaid," she told him, glancing up.

"I'm aware," Philip replied. A half-smile passed over his face, as images of a lost box of stories and a half-eaten avocado arose unbidden.

He hesitated a moment before adding, "It's not safe here for your kind anymore." He didn't know if it was smart to forewarn a creature who regarded murder not so much a sin as a minor inconvenience. But what was _smart_ rarely came into decisions in his line of work. And he thought perhaps Syrena would want him to. "The Spaniards came as well, and they brought their singers with them."

She laughed airily. "We know that." She flicked her tail, sending another silver shower onto the grass. "Very thoughtful of you to worry about us, missionary. But the netmakers sang for the Mallorcan merfolk four hundred years ago. They were a hopelessly gullible school. And they never disciplined themselves to swallow anything as bitter as human blood. We've known its value for centuries."

"So you do live forever," he said, half to himself. The thought saddened him. While in an intellectual way he was glad to understand something else about Syrena, this new insight was just another thing that made her more distant and unreachable. Four hundred years was a very long time to carry a memory. He wondered, if she survived the night, if she would remember him four hundred years from now. The blonde mermaid smoothed the water around her with her arms, blurring her reflection with light ripples.

"No one lives forever," she told him. "Cover your ears at dawn, if you're still alive. I might eat you if you fall into the water. I doubt I'll remember you in the morning."

A dull chill settled in his chest and made him ask, "What will happen at dawn?"

She smiled. Her smile brought back memories of icebergs and frozen windowpanes. "We will sing back, of course. It will be a beautiful battle. Sometimes it's amusing to guess which men will fall soonest. The ones who sing loudest are usually the first."

She fingered the grass again, her delightful anticipation abruptly replaced by indifference. "The pool you're looking for is to the north, just beyond the cluster of golden heliconias. They really didn't leave you very far. I think they wanted you to find your way back. The man who dropped you mentioned something about tears of joy…"

_Then she didn't cry for them after all_, Philip thought. If his death made no difference to her, he did not know what his resurrection would do. But he supposed tears of joy were better than the alternative. And he had no doubt if this trap failed, Blackbeard could think of several other creative ways to get what he wanted. He craned his neck in the direction of the mermaid's gaze and grimaced as the gash above his collarbone reasserted itself. "If I want to help her, do I have a choice?"

"No," she replied. He nodded. There was little else he could do, except offer a brief word of thanks, which he did as he rose unsteadily to his feet.

"Good-bye," he said.

A light splash told him she was no longer listening. He turned and began the northward march, moving through trees far older than he, yet still much younger than the thing he sought.

* * *

><p>He did not remember much of the journey back to the pool, except that it was short. A light wind rustled through the canopy above. The yellow heliconias winked at him from their cluster on the damp soil as he passed. Philip acknowledged them and moved on. His muscles still felt heavy from laying immobile for God only knew how many hours, but his mind at least was clear. His vision had cleared as well. As he approached the pool of sorrows, the silhouettes of a dozen shriveled mermaids emerged to greet him, and yet he had no trouble picking out her.<p>

Her eyes were closed. In the moonlight he could make out the subtle rise and fall of her chest, shallow and regular enough for slumber. He tried to approach quietly, knowing all the while they were probably being watched no matter what he did. He remembered how uncomfortable it had felt being tied to a crow's nest for three days straight, but they had tied her with her arms above her head. They must be incredibly sore right now.

Raising his eyes higher, he scanned the knot fastening her to the tree with a mixture of relief and dismay. It was secure enough to hold her, but it was also simple. A highwayman's hitch, the quartermaster had called it, because the gentlest tug on the proper string would cause it to come undone. In this case, the proper string was safely beyond her reach, but perfectly within his. He had a feeling the moment he touched it the game would be up.

Cautiously, he circled around the side of the giant cedar trunk where they had left her hanging. In spite of everything, there was a rightness about being next to her, of the kind he had previously felt only in seminary or in the quietest moments of prayer. He touched her wrist, and she stirred. He lowered his voice to a volume he thought only she would hear, so that anyone else would have thought his moving lips a trick of the light. "Syrena."

Blinking, she turned and studied his face, her eyes somewhat foggy with sleep. "You…came back," she murmured groggily. "I didn't hear you out there. I should have heard you..." She shook her head, clearly disoriented by the dulling of her sharpest sense. Philip decided to file this mystery into the category of things to figure out later.

"You were asleep," he said. She frowned, but halfheartedly. At the moment she looked more exhausted than confused. Philip eyed the ropes anxiously. This was a trap, but there was a small, almost insignificant window in which either one of them could act. They had exactly the amount of time it would take for her to cry, or for Blackbeard to decide she was not going to cry and he needed to try something else. Lowering his head, he spoke into her ear as softly as he could. "I can untie these, but you need to go the moment I do. Promise me you'll go."

She closed her eyes and nodded. "We should go south," she said. "Far south."

Unintentionally, he felt himself smile. "Why south?" he asked curiously.

"There's snow there. It never snowed at home. And…I would like to know what a penguin looks like."

_Four hundred years and you never saw a penguin?_ A part of him almost laughed, the part of him that did not find this game excruciatingly painful. He could not, would not, forget that she had said _we_. With a conscious effort, he turned away from her and moved to the side of the tree. As expected, he had barely touched the unburdened end of the rope before it slipped away, dumping her harmlessly into the water. "Go, Syrena," he said, as quietly as he dared.

But she lingered a moment, staring up at him from the pool with her irresistible hazel eyes. "Philip," she said, now wide awake as the saltwater lapped against her shoulders. "Why did you come back?"

He would think afterwards that there were a number of things he should have said then. _I'll explain later_, or _Just go_, would have been perfectly acceptable answers. But he had been raised to be honest, so the truth was something that came automatically to him, by default. "Because you are different," he said.

A genuine smile crossed her face, and for a moment she looked truly radiant. At the corner of her eye something glistened, a drop of seawater precariously poised to race down her cheek. And then, just as quickly, the game ended. Strong hands seized him from behind while four more hands pulled her from the water. In the chaos that followed Philip remembered only two things with clarity. The first was how her face clouded over with disillusionment, until it was a mirror of what it had been the morning before, when she had stared at him through the glass aquarium. The second was that the knot binding her to the tree was now a constrictor hitch, the kind that was nearly impossible to undo.

With nothing else to lose, he fought back. His elbow collided with someone's nose. Something cracked, and for a moment his arms were free, but before he could do anything else useful with them the quartermaster pinned them to his sides in a suffocating embrace.

"Come away," he hissed roughly into Philip's ear. Philip resisted, but the quartermaster's bearlike arms only squeezed more tightly, until Philip thought his ribs would crack, or his lungs burst from lack of oxygen. "Come away, son." The fatherly tone in the quartermaster's voice startled Philip into relaxing, and in that brief instant of hesitation he reflexively left off his struggle.

"Thank God," the quartermaster said. A blow to his stomach sent Philip sprawling to his knees. Stunned, he felt someone loop a rope around his wrists and haul him back to his feet. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard the slightly echoed shuffling of two dozen boots on the grass, and the clanking of a dozen swords in their steel sheaths.

A part of him wished they would all surround him then, so he would not have to turn and see the disgust reflected in her eyes. At the same time he wanted to memorize her face, regardless of its expression, simply because it was hers. But when he looked back, she was not staring at him any longer. The last glimpse he caught of her, she had craned her neck towards the canopy, as though she thought if she stretched far enough, she could see in the water above the sky a reflection of home.


	8. Netmaker

The Fountain of Youth glistened in the mist of predawn, a kaleidoscope of green fern slashed by silver rivulets. Two columns of round grey stones framed a crystal waterfall cascading down from the center. Even Philip, exhausted and disillusioned as he was, could not help feeling impressed. That something so pristine and perfect could exist this side of Paradise was almost enough to erase the scars the last few weeks had left on his mind and soul. For a moment he thought perhaps they had stumbled across the entrance to Eden. Then he remembered why they were here, and what was supposed to happen at the end of their journey.

_God demands no human sacrifices save one, and that was made long ago._ Though by mermaid standards, perhaps it was no longer than a lifetime. Blackbeard circled the waterfall awestruck, momentarily forgetting his crew, captive and daughter in the rapture of discovery. Philip turned to the quartermaster.

"Cut me loose," he said quietly through the corner of his mouth. "You don't want to see Blackbeard live longer any more than I do."

"No," the quartermaster replied tersely. He kept his eyes on Blackbeard, so as not to appear to be conspiring or doing anything suspicious. "You make life interesting, missionary, but you're not the only one I've got to worry about. You go, who do you think the captain's going to pick to die in your place?"

Philip surveyed the rest of the crew for a few seconds, but the answer was obvious. Of course he would choose the youngest, the one with the most years remaining in his life. Philip was surprised Blackbeard hadn't considered the twelve-year-old cabin boy first, but perhaps it was only pragmatic. The cabin boy was still an asset on the ship; Philip was an annoyance.

"For what it's worth, I didn't expect that trick to work. Guess after forty-eight hours something in her system had to crack." The older man gave Philip's shoulder a congenial shake. "Don't take it personal, clergyman. She was probably just relieved because she thought for a minute there she wasn't going to die."

"She doesn't have to," Philip argued, feeling the blood pounding in his ears. "Blackbeard got what he wanted. He should have let her go."

The quartermaster snorted. "Should have. You really still believe those words mean anything to the captain?" He shook his head and laughed. "Right. I keep forgetting you religious folk like to give people the benefit of the doubt."

Philip closed his eyes, waiting for the throbbing in his temples to subside. Two sentences, one spoken by an unnamed mermaid, the other by a Spanish captain, chased each other relentlessly in his head. They contained possibly the only useful pieces of information he had picked up since setting foot on this accursed island. _Cover your ears at dawn. That creature cannot survive more than two days away from the sea._

"What'd you come after her for, anyhow? Thought you church-educated people were supposed to be intelligent." The quartermaster's blade scraped against his thigh as he sat down on a moss-covered rock. Of all the crew, the quartermaster alone wore his blade naked, though Philip suspected there wasn't a sheath large enough to hold it. It was not a proper saber of the kind Blackbeard and his daughter wore. More than anything else it resembled a machete, or the steel end of a saw broken off and crudely resharpened.

"And I thought you were supposed to be a zombie," Philip said, rubbing his wrists together distractedly.

His companion's fingers twitched reflexively over his blade. The corners of his mouth turned upwards, but if he was attempting to smile, it looked grotesquely out of place on his scarred gorilla face. "Captain's sorcery wears off on land. Sooner, if you're smart enough to hold onto your wits during the bewitching." The quartermaster shrugged. "I've been my own man these two weeks at least."

"Two weeks?" Philip repeated. The sharp throbbing in his head intensified. He remembered thinking the captain's closest crew members were figures to be pitied rather than loathed. It had been some small comfort, to believe they had not been themselves when they lined up his brethren on the sand and opened their throats as they knelt and prayed. Now he felt disgusted, and tired. "Two weeks, and you've done nothing."

"Not everyone's as eager to be a martyr as you," the quartermaster retorted gruffly. "There's a virtue in waiting for the opportune moment. I gave you a chance to run the other night. Saw you'd gone and figured you'd taken it. Never dreamed you'd come walking back."

_We weren't given much of a choice. You weren't the only one watching us_. Philip considered voicing the reply aloud, but he didn't think it was worth the effort it would take to explain the fanatical machinations of the Spaniards. That, and it sent a sudden chill through his heart to think of what would happen if the Spaniards found Syrena on their way to the fountain.

"Don't know what possessed you to lose your head over some sea cow with scales. Thought you were smarter than that, missionary."

"You talk about her as though she's no better than an animal."

"Well, she's not human," the quartermaster said flatly. "What were you planning to do with her, swim to some deserted island and make a couple dozen merbabies? Even if she wasn't a man-eating monster, a normal mermaid lives two thousand years at least. You think any of them care about the likes of us?"

_This one cared_, Philip thought. But the inevitable past tense made the words stick in his throat. He rubbed his wrists against the ropes again, more as a diversion than anything else. "They find us bitter," he said absentmindedly.

"What?" the quartermaster asked blankly.

"Our blood. It's bitter for them," Philip clarified, though he doubted it mattered much at this point. "They weren't born eating men. We're an acquired taste."

"Hunh," the quartermaster said with a grunt. Evidently finding the conversation uninteresting, he returned to observing Blackbeard and Angelica. Angelica had removed the small glass phial from her satchel and was staring at the tear inside with a mixture of satisfaction and awe. Philip wondered if she had any idea how little she had settled for.

Her joy was short-lived, at any rate. A faint rumbling troubled the space behind them, followed by the unmistakable clanging of sabers and bayonets. _Spaniards_ was his first thought, but a single glance proved him wrong. If the royal blue jackets weren't enough to identify them, the British colors hanging brazenly near the front certainly would have been. The soldier who carried the flag walked with the somewhat pompous conviction typical of many mid-ranked officers. But it was the commanding officer who drew Philip's attention – a man who looked as out of place in the clean-cut British navy as the navy looked here. A grizzly, weather-beaten man with disheveled grey hair and a wooden leg.

The quartermaster stood and stretched his arms languorously over his head. "This, friend, is what we call the makings of an opportune moment."

* * *

><p>Outside in the jungle, the air hung thick and hazy. The sounds of battle had faded behind him, and now he was alone, with only the trees, the water and a handful of dead mermaids for company. <em>Try not to waste this<em>, the quartermaster had told him. By most practical accounts, Philip thought, he had wasted it. The slash to the stomach he had taken for the cabin boy had saved one life for now, but there was no guarantee someone else wouldn't dispatch the boy just as quickly before the smoke cleared. And when he returned stumbling to the pool of sorrows, Syrena had taken one look at him and left. At first he had felt shocked and disappointed, and then he had berated himself for expecting anything else. He could hardly blame her if she had decided she was sick to death of all of them. _But she is alive. That…that cannot be a waste._

He inched closer to the pool until he was half-leaning over it. Without knowing exactly why, he began to splash warm saltwater over the wound in his gut. It stung like hell and did absolutely nothing to remedy it, but the pain kept him awake. Awake enough to stare into its depths and wait, waiting on..._A fool's hope,_ he decided. She was not a monster or a savage, but she was wild, and it was the nature of all wild things to love freedom above all else. In the vulnerable days of her captivity, he had allowed himself to forget that.

His head was starting to spin from blood loss. Rolling further forward, Philip tried to hold the wound shut with the folds of his sweat-soaked vest. All the same, the trees began to swim and blur in front of him. He found himself on a strange island, carried by strange tides, in love with a strange girl who wasn't even a girl at all. It was so easy to become lost at sea.

Something deep began to echo in the west, the sound of many voices chanting in unison. Though not a Papist, Philip's father had spent many long afternoons schooling him in both Latin and Greek. He knew these words and recognized the melody of a Catholic requiem. _Oh God_, he thought, _it's begun._ Somewhere on the coast, he knew a dozen monks in brown cowls were standing on the rocks singing promises of rest and peace to a school of mermaids that would have neither. He would die listening to a ballad of netmakers.

"Philip."

He started backwards, half-convinced he was delirious. Syrena's head and shoulders bobbed lightly above the water. Beneath, where the waves lapped below her neck, he could make out only a shimmer of coral and amber scales. She peered up at him, wide-eyed and unblinking as the night he had pierced her tail on the rocks. "You're hurt, Philip," she said with a small frown.

He willed his eyelids to remain open, not wanting to lose sight of her for even a fraction of a second. "In body only," he heard himself say, though his lips felt slow and heavy. "It's all right."

The rest of what he said he did not remember clearly. There were winds, and there were tides, and there was a fragile thing called faith that had made sense to him once, but somehow it had all turned upside-down and only the intervention of someone equally upside-down could set it straight again. He wondered if any of it made sense to her. Out of the water, her face rose to meet his.

"I can save you, you know," she whispered, her breath cool and seductive against his ear. Her fingers traced the side of his neck. "If you ask."

She pulled back into the water. Her face swam in front of him, now nearer, now farther, tantalizing him with her closeness. He had a feeling that somehow this was a test, and he had no idea what the right answer was. At that moment he could think of a thousand things to ask of her. _Tell me you want me. Tell me you don't think I'm as vile as the rest of them. Tell me your name._

"Forgive me." The words escaped instinctively, almost carelessly. It was not the only thing he wanted, but without it nothing else would have mattered. Not even time, if she had chosen to offer it. Would God forgive him, even if she refused? He thought so, but God's forgiveness was no longer the only kind he cared about. "For the part I played. In your capture. I am…sorry, Syrena."

She blinked. Her frown deepened. She drew back an inch further, and for an instant he thought she would refuse. It was, of course, her right. The next instant her lips pressed against his, cool and salty on his tongue. Philip closed his eyes as an onslaught of sensations competed in his mind. She was the earth and the sea and the stars and the sunrise, and all the places too strange to enter the dreams of his deepest delirium, and the closest thing to home he had ever known.

He felt her arms wrap around his neck and was suddenly, painfully aware of the ground scraping against his torn stomach. She was dragging him into the sea and he had no choice but to trust her, though his mind insisted that even if the legends were true and her kiss would save him from drowning, he would certainly bleed to death in the water. The thought did not bother him as much as it should have. He had seen men die in worse ways.

Even so, the saltwater felt like a white-hot brand when it hit his skin, burning from the inside out. So overwhelming was the pain in his open wound, he barely noticed when the water closed over his feet. A dark red cloud streamed out his side, and Philip dimly realized they could attract the attention of sharks, or worse. Syrena wrapped her arms more tightly around his chest. The roots of unseen trees pierced through the soil above them. One of them grazed his head, and Syrena responded by dragging him farther beneath the island.

The water grew darker and colder the deeper she carried him. He thought he could make out a distant glimmer of light somewhere ahead, but Syrena did not seem to be moving in that direction. Instead she veered to the right, where the ocean turned from blue to a black so intense it almost felt like a living thing. As they swam through it he lost all sense of up or down, but the disorientation did not terrify him the way he once imagined it would. If he had to die, he thought he would rather die in the dark next to her than alone in the sunlight.

The wispy edge of her tail brushed against his leg. Slowly the blackness melted away into ever lighter shades of green. They broke the surface together. Philip had just enough time to take in dripping stalactites and limestone walls before Syrena shoved him out of the water onto the hard surface.

"You need to breathe again now," she reminded him. He tried and found himself coughing and sputtering. Raising his hand to his mouth, he was sickened to find he had coughed up blood. He let his head fall to the ground. The walls and ceiling echoed with the sonorous Latin chanting, as though they had stumbled into a cathedral rather than a cave. _They're right above us,_ he realized with a chill.

"You're…too close," he told Syrena as she crawled out of the water beside him. "You should have gotten yourself farther away."

"Too far for you," she said tersely. She rolled him over onto his back and inspected his stomach, tight-lipped. "Worse than I thought."

Philip closed his eyes and surrendered himself to her care. Her hands worked furiously to strip his vest off the wound where blood had started to congeal. It seared where the fabric tried to stick to his torn skin. She was no gentle healer, this sea nymph from the rough Mediterranean. But healing, whether physical or spiritual, was not supposed to be pleasant, so long as it was effective.

As her fingers tugged at the corners of his vest, he listened to the music reverberating off the walls. A second melody had begun to compete with the first, equally beautiful, but very, very different. Where the monks' song was deep and exalting, the mermaids' song was light, enticing and wild. Then, after a time, a third sound disrupted the symphony that was not beautiful at all. It was difficult to tell sex for certain – all screams of terror tended to be high-pitched as a rule – but he suspected they were male.

"It sounds like…your side is winning." Another choking cough racked his body. Syrena glared at him over her work.

"Not my side," she said, placing a free hand on his shoulder and holding him firmly to the ground. She ministered to him in silence after that. He didn't understand most of what she was doing, but he could tell from the tightness in her jaw and the tense furrow of her eyebrows that it was not working. Still she repeated the same motions, pinching the edges of the wound together, smearing them with seawater from her hair, while her frown grew deeper and darker.

"Stop," he said.

"I will not," she answered coolly.

"_Enough_, Syrena." He closed his hands around her wrists, gently but firmly pulling them away from his stomach. "That's enough."

"It is not enough," she insisted, though her voice had softened and lost some of its fervor. Her eyes swam with frustration. That, more than anything else, convinced him he was right. He did not want to die like this, with his last memories of her struggling frantically for a lost cause. Pressing her lips together, she glanced around the cave, at the mermaids outside and the monks above. She shook her head. "Not here. Not…this."

Philip nodded, understanding. "Here," he said. Pulling her down closer, he covered her ears with his hands. "Don't listen."

She rested her head against his chest. He let one arm fall to her waist while his other hand remained pressed against her left ear. A small shudder rippled down her spine. Softly, she began to hum a third song to join the strange concert. Unlike the other two, hers at times sounded disjointed, with jarring breaks between movements instead of smooth transitions. Bits of it he suspected were missing, though perhaps once, in its whole form, it had been joyous and carefree.

_A flawed song for a flawed mermaid_, Philip thought, remembering the words of a golden-haired mermaid by another pool. Its brokenness made it more real to him than the others, and therefore more beautiful.

"Philip," she murmured into his chest, some time after the song had finished. "Why do you not fear death?"

"Because death is not the end," he said, fingering her hair. "It's just a way of coming home." A poor synopsis of the Christian faith, but it was the only one he had time or strength to give. Her head gave a slight shift.

"Home," she said pensively. "Would you rather be there now?"

A strange question, he reflected. A man was supposed to desire heaven above all things, and yet God had put men on earth for a reason. While a large of part of him joyously insisted _yes_, another part of him hesitantly answered, _Not yet_. "I would have gotten there…one way or another," he said finally. "The when was never important."

His vision began to blacken. _It's not when but how_, he wanted to add, but his lips and eyelids had grown too heavy. His chest felt lighter as her head lifted off of it. Briefly, the tip of her nose nudged his. As his eyes closed he felt her lips brush against his forehead. Outside the voices of monks and mermaids thundered on, but they seemed to come from a great distance, while inside his senses contracted to a single hybrid smell of salt and seagrapes and limestone.

* * *

><p>She watched him thoughtfully in the early hours after dawn, taking careful note of how the missionary's chest rose and fell in the thin streaks of daylight that managed to infiltrate the cave. His feet dangled loosely over the edge of the pool. She would need to move him eventually, but was reluctant to do so just now.<p>

He looked more sure of himself in his sleep. His face took on a new conviction, as though unconscious slumber smoothed away the lines of care and uncertainty that creased it during the day. She found the alteration pleasing. Awake, his actions were often punctuated by anxiety and doubt. He burned with a desire to do right, but was at times unsure exactly how. He stumbled awkwardly in his quest for virtue. This, too, was something she found pleasing.

There was sadness as well, she reflected, sweeping a stray strand of hair off his eyes. A sadness that puzzled her. The lives of men were by nature short and sad, or so she had always been told, but his seemed deeper than that of the others. He did not appear troubled by the brevity of his life. Instead, his grief stemmed from a kind of lost-ness that made her feel curiously at home.

_I used to dream of becoming a chambered nautilus_, Syrena thought idly. The idea of carrying home on one's back had a certain pragmatic appeal. To build a shell slowly around oneself, over months and years, a refuge in which to retreat and hide...She had already tried that, though. After the Spaniards had rendered her first home in Mallorca uninhabitable, she had departed to the center of the ocean, the one place she had felt confident they would not follow.

Time had very little meaning in the deep sea. She could tell day from night when she surfaced, and the shifting constellations told her how much of the year had passed. But since nothing else changed, the signs lost their importance. Gradually she had stopped paying attention. When she finally decided to leave the open waters and look for others of her kind closer to land, she had been surprised to discover four centuries had passed. _I do not feel any older_, she thought, examining her scales with some bewilderment. But with no one younger to look after, and no one older to look after her, perhaps age lost its meaning as well.

The Whitecap mermaids left her cold. Harder and prouder they seemed, and full of disdain for everything that was not them. Mention of the netmakers filled them with amusement rather than fear. _All men are netmakers_, the light-haired one told her with a sympathetic smile when she had first arrived. She was the one who called herself Tamara, though Syrena doubted this was her true name. _But don't worry, little sister. We'll protect you until you learn to protect yourself. I can teach you how to ensnare them with your eyes and sharpen your senses with their blood. You did well to come here. Won't you tell me your name, dear heart?_

Syrena had declined, and the other mermaids had mostly left her alone after that. Some found her too much of an oddity to be worth talking to; others took her quietness for snobbery. Which, she supposed, it may have been. Still the golden-haired one watched her from the rocks with eyes full of understanding, waiting.

Philip stirred briefly in his sleep. She watched anxiously as his neck rolled towards his shoulder, but then he subsided. Her cheeks flushed involuntarily. The sight of his bare chest made her skin prickle. It seemed like a frivolous concern now, but she found herself wishing she had not lost his shirt. She wondered if he would think it silly or idiotic, if she told him when he had wrapped it around her shoulders, she had experienced for the first time the nautilus-like feeling she had been searching for. It had perplexed her, because it was the last place in the world she would have expected to find it. His shirt was soft and flimsy, and so easy to tear apart, but perhaps not all shells needed to be hard.

Still, she had been a burden to him those two days in the jungle. She knew he would not say so – a man like him never would – and possibly had never even consciously thought so. Helping others seemed to make him glad. But there remained between them a troubling sense of obligation. She had not lived very long compared to most of her kind. She was old enough, though, to know that stories of rescue, however beautiful, were not enough to bind two people together.

Syrena glanced over her shoulder at the brightening daylight with discontent. She would much rather be here when he awoke, but she sensed that would be unwise. She could not guess his reaction to being saved. If he felt indebted to her, or if he truly had not wanted to be healed...It would not do. However, she could not repress an ironic sense of guilt. Most men would kill for the gift she had given him, but he was different. He might not like her method of deliverance. It would certainly destroy any chance he had of returning to a normal life among the landwalkers. The important thing, she told herself, was that he would wake. The rest would resolve itself in its own time.

Setting her jaw resolutely, she shoved herself out of the water and used what strength she had left to push him into the shadows, a safe distance away from the edge of the pool. None of the Whitecap mermaids would consider it worthwhile to sprout legs to reach him. They did not frequent these caves very often at any rate, and she suspected they were occupied with other prey this morning. Philip stirred again, but his eyes remained closed. He looked heartachingly boyish in the half-light.

_I am sorry, Philip,_ she thought, taking a moment to brush a curious dragonfly off the side of his face._ You did not ask for help, and I gave it without permission. I believe you would call that trespassing._

The three-syllable name he had invented for her echoed briefly in her head. That at least was hers to keep. Bending down closer, she caught the scent of his breath, bitter but fragrant, like fresh coffee grounds on a cool morning. She held it in her nostrils for several long seconds. Then without looking back, she dove into the water, taking care not to splash him as her tail disappeared beneath the surface.


	9. Nautilus

By late afternoon, most of the ships had departed. Syrena watched them go from her vantage point on the thin peninsula of rock jutting out into the water. She counted eleven Spanish ships leaving the bay, grim and silent, their gold and scarlet colors flaring against the blue waves before they shrank and vanished into the horizon. Of the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ she saw no sign. The tide had gone out, and the surf was littered with clumps of seaweed and abandoned nets. The sight of them made her shudder, even though they were torn to shreds and effectively useless.

_It is too quiet,_ she thought restlessly. Now that the songs and gunfire were over, there was nothing to listen to except the waves breaking against the sand. There was a time the quiet did not bother her so much, a time when she craved the peace and solitude. It felt oppressive and rather lonely at the moment, though. There was someone she wanted to share it with, but she did not know if he would want to share it with her. The painful uncertainty was almost enough to make her wish she had never left the open sea.

Shivering, she folded her arms inside the sleeves of the missionary's shirt. It had been thoroughly drenched when she first brought it back from the pool of sorrows, but the sun and the brisk ocean breeze had dried the fabric until it was stiff and salty. She pondered her legs, feeling unpleasantly paralyzed. Curiously, she twisted her ankle in the water and watched the clear droplets trickle off her toes. Toes for grasping, a shallow arch in the sole for balance. Mechanically she could see how the pieces fit together, but making them work in practice eluded her. Then again, perhaps she would not need to learn how to walk.

A faint disturbance in the water interrupted her reverie. From several meters beyond the peninsula, a light blue current knifed through the ocean. Gradually it slowed to a stop in front of the rocks where she sat, and a golden head emerged from the waves. The water slid gracefully from the other mermaid's shoulders like the hood of a cloak. "Good afternoon, Tamara," Syrena said politely.

"It is," Tamara agreed. She glanced over at the far side of the cove, where Syrena had seen a few tattered brown robes washed up on the rocks, their owners having no more use for them. "Though perhaps not for some," Tamara conceded. She turned back to Syrena and clicked her tongue sympathetically.

"Your missionary abandoned you," she observed. Her eyes shone with compassion, but behind them Syrena thought she detected a sliver of triumph.

"He sleeps," Syrena answered. She shrugged, and a sleeve of his cotton shirt slipped off her shoulder. Reflexively she pulled it back over her arm.

Tamara narrowed her eyes. "And you will go back to him."

Syrena looked down. The core of her being urged her to return, to let her face be the first thing he saw when he awoke. A part of her sincerely believed that all could be well if affection, and not responsibility, had inspired his behavior towards her. Another part of her feared that if he did see her upon waking, he might feel obligated to repay a life-debt. She could not bear the thought of that. It was very important that he choose her because he _wished _to, not because he felt he had to. However, she doubted Tamara would understand the distinction. In her ignorance the older mermaid took her silence for assent.

"He has four decades left in him. Five, at most. What will you do when he is gone?"

"I do not know," Syrena replied. _I do not know if he will want me even for that long._

Tamara's eyes glistened. She would not cry – Tamara never cried – but the sting of rejection swam beneath her turquoise irises. "I don't understand you," she said softly. "Ten years I watched over you, waiting for you to come open up to me. And then he draws you in after two days...Two days are nothing to us."

She stretched out her fingers for a moment, wistfully, and then retracted them. "There is so much I wanted to teach you, little sister."

"I did not wish to learn what you had to teach," Syrena said. A piece of her regretted that she did not feel sadder about this, but not a very large one.

"You might have, eventually," Tamara replied dully. She looked down in resignation. "It's too late now. I can see it in your eyes. We've lost you."

_You never had me to begin with_, Syrena thought, but there was no reason to hurt Tamara further by voicing the thought aloud. Though Whitecap Bay was a far cry from anything she would call home, Tamara had given her a refuge and had asked for nothing in return. For that at least she deserved some kindness. Syrena nodded halfheartedly towards the beach decorated with the torn monks' robes. "Congratulations," she offered.

"And you," Tamara said with a curt nod. "Though I suppose I should congratulate the missionary instead. You'll be a widow in a few decades." Syrena bit her lip and lowered her eyes. For a second Tamara glanced up at her hopefully. "You are still very young, you know. You're allowed to make a few mistakes…"

Syrena shook her head. "As you said. I am lost," she said lightly. _And I am younger, but I will die sooner, I think._

Tamara let out a short, irritated sigh. "That you are," she agreed. As they had never been particularly close, there was little more either of them could think of to say to each other. After another minute or so of silence, Tamara departed for the other side of the cove. She did not offer an explanation or even a word of farewell. But then, she probably did not think she needed to. Tamara did not answer to anyone, and neither, thought Syrena, did she.

* * *

><p>The light sound of dripping water greeted him when he came to. For a moment Philip wondered where he was, and then he looked up and saw the stalactites clinging to the ceiling and remembered. He was inside a cathedral, but not one designed by human architects. This one was older and far more beautiful. And there had been singing, he remembered that too. Three songs he had heard before blacking out, a deep song and a wild song and a broken song. It was the broken one he recalled most clearly. That had been her song, though he could not understand any of the words.<p>

Philip raised himself onto his elbows, feeling stiff. His eyes wandered to his stomach, surprised at the absence of the gut-wrenching pain he had felt earlier. The ugly gash had disappeared, and only a thin white stripe marked that it had ever been there at all. He fingered the unbroken skin in bewilderment. _Syrena, my Syrena, what on earth did you do?_ Dazed and lightheaded, he fell back onto the cold floor and stretched out his arms. A laugh began to erupt from his lungs that grew louder as it echoed off the ceiling and walls. It was wrong to fear death, yet he was happier than he had felt in ages. It did not matter what she had done; this was air and that was limestone and he was alive.

He sat up again and turned to the emerald pool where they had emerged earlier. He could appreciate the grandeur of his surroundings more fully now that he wasn't fighting for his life. The cavern was cool and spacious, with a ceiling high enough for seven men to stand on each other's shoulders and still have room to spare. A few rays of light danced on the far end of the water. They seemed to come from a source beyond the chamber, where the cave bent to an unseen corridor. Where there was light, there was probably an exit.

"Syrena?" he called uncertainly. His voice echoed ominously off the limestone, but it did not bother him just yet. He called out her name a few more times, waiting for any disturbance in the water. There was nothing. Perplexed but not worried, he got to his feet and made his way towards the light.

Philip walked out of the cavern into a narrow passageway. The walls pressed so close against him he was forced to scramble sideways, earning a few more scrapes on his arms and chest where the rock nicked his skin. Syrena would not have been able to come this way, but as long as he emerged somewhere along the coast, she was bound to be nearby. She knew this island; she would know where to find him.

The corridor came to an abrupt end less than three feet from the water. A curtain of vines dangled over the exit. Philip shouldered through them and found himself standing on a white shore. A few shreds of coarse brown cloth had washed up on the sand. Looking back at the rock face, he had to appreciate her skill at choosing a hiding place. The crevice was so thin, and the tangle of vines and tree roots so concealing, he would have walked right past it.

"Syrena?" he called out again, this time nearly losing the sound of his voice to the wind and the waves. The sun was low on the horizon, turning the sky into a canvas of violet and crimson and rose. _Sunrise or sunset?_ he wondered. As he waited, he wandered around the sand and rocks by the ocean, scanning them for a sign. There was nothing to show she was there, and nothing to show she ever had been there. A sinking feeling began to take hold in his chest.

_She's gone_, he thought as another wave crashed against the surf. _So that was it, then. _In his mind he could hear the quartermaster's gruff voice, asking why he would have expected anything else. It hurt, because a part of him had honestly believed she would choose to stay with him. He had thought, back in the cave, that she had felt the same heart-accelerating, intoxicating thrill he had felt when her lips met his. It seemed rather naïve now. Her kiss had kept him from drowning so she could heal him, that was all. That she wanted him to live did not mean she wanted him to live with her. _Perhaps I am more of a boy than I thought._

His shoulders felt heavy again. For the first time in weeks he was free to go and do as he wished, yet the appeal had faded. He did not know exactly how long he had been asleep. It could not have been more than a couple days, if the scratchiness of his jaw was any indication. Still, most or all of the ships could have left by now. And he had no desire to fall in with the Spaniards or Blackbeard again, which left only the English. Philip looked inland. There was fresh water, and there was fruit. He supposed he could survive here for a while if he had to.

The broken lighthouse was still visible on the crest of the mountain, even more of a ruin now than it had been before. It overlooked the spot where he had first locked eyes with Syrena. That place had turned his life upside-down once; perhaps it would show him how to turn it right again. Without any clear goal in mind, he headed towards it.

He had not gone far, no more than half a mile, when he stumbled across a strange sight. The _Queen Anne's Revenge_ sat beached in the tiny inlet where Blackbeard had anchored it after the mermaid hunt. At its helm, with Blackbeard's sword on his belt, stood the one-legged Englishman who had interrupted them at the Fountain. Beneath him more than a dozen of Blackbeard's former crew scrambled to unfasten the ropes and unfurl the mast, waiting for the tide to return.

The quartermaster looked pleased. The rest of the crew looked a little dazed. The zombification seemed to have worn off, and now they were blinking at the sun and the surf as though they weren't quite sure how they had gotten there. The cabin boy had made it back as well, Philip was relieved to see. And Scrum, the poor, simple sailor who had been unlucky enough to almost kiss a mermaid. Of Blackbeard, Angelica and their friend with the dreadlocks and impractical eyeliner there was no sign at all.

Philip knew looking at their faces that he had nothing to fear from them. It would be safe, and downright easy, to walk down to the _Revenge_, help them untie the rigging and climb aboard. He could sail with them to Barbados, or Tortuga, or wherever its new captain chose to lead them. Chances were it would be a place full of lost souls needing God's word. He could bring hope to thieves and drunkards and prostitutes, and after that..._Home. I could go home._

From the bottom of the hill, Scrum glanced in his direction. His honest face lit up when he caught sight of Philip. The sailor dropped the rope he was untying and waved him over with an excited hallo. Philip smiled and waved back. Then he turned around and walked down the other side of the hill.

"Oy! Where d'you reckon the missionary's going?"

Behind him, Philip heard the quartermaster snort derisively. "Off to kiss a mermaid, like as not. Let the poor idiot go."

Philip descended the rest of the hill at a sprint. His body felt lighter now that the burden of deciding was gone. _She would never go back to the lighthouse. She knows it's too dangerous. _If she had returned to the sea, she was lost. But if there was even the smallest chance she had not...He needed to know if the last two days had meant anything at all to her, or if in her eyes he was only a kind stranger she wanted to help and forget.

To his left, the red sun was sinking. Philip guessed he had at best an hour before it disappeared. He did not want to imagine how much more difficult it would be to find her in the dark. He wondered where she would go, and how long she would wait for him, if indeed she was waiting for him. Suddenly time felt like a luxury he did not have. He knew at least she could not go very far inland, so circling the coast seemed like the most logical course of action. As he walked past the cavern entrance again, he tried not to think about why, if she truly wanted to see him again, she wouldn't have simply stayed there. The answer did not seem likely to encourage him.

He passed another cluster of heliconias and a thin peninsula of basalt that jutted out into the west. As he clambered down the other side of the rocks, another strange sight greeted him in the wet sand. A pair of footprints, oddly splayed. A second right footprint appeared just barely ahead of its predecessor – a small, mincing step, followed by what looked to be a giant lunge from the left foot. And just ahead of that, a pair of handprints. _Not walking. Stumbling. _Philip raised his head and looked down the eccentric trail as it continued along the shore beyond his sight. Shaking his head in bewilderment, he started to laugh.

* * *

><p>The sun was half-gone by the time he caught up with her. She was not difficult to spot, with her dark hair contrasted against the immaculate white of her shirt. He had no idea how she had found it again, but the sight of his old shirt sent an immediate surge of relief through his chest. As trivial as it seemed compared to everything else they had been through, he had not wanted to picture how much more awkward a conversation would be had he found her naked.<p>

She was walking away from him, though her version of walking was unlike any he had seen before. Her arms stretched out beside her in a straight line, tilting now and then for balance. Instead of bending her legs, she swept them forward in awkward semicircles. Still she was walking, and he could not suppress a vicarious sense of pride.

"Syrena-" It was a mistake, he realized too late. She turned at the sound of his voice. As she did her precarious balance failed. Feeling alarmed and a little guilty, he sprinted over to her side. For a moment he considered helping her to feet; then he decided it would probably be kinder to join her on the ground. She looked up from her half-kneeling position, her legs sprawled inelegantly behind her.

"It's getting easier now," she told him. "The falling." She held out one of her hands. Concerned, he brushed the wet sand off her palm and noticed the skin looked red and slightly chafed.

"How far were you planning to go?" he asked her.

"I had not decided," she answered, glancing back down. "I did not know if you would look for me." She shifted her legs beneath her until she was sitting properly, with her elbows resting across her knees.

"I didn't want to leave without you," he said. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground, the color in her cheeks growing deeper. A smile she seemed half-embarrassed to own appeared to be playing with the corners of her mouth. Along the side of her face, he could faintly make out thin, dried tracks winding towards her neck. "You were crying," he observed, his hand moving instinctively forward.

"I was not." Rather hastily, she wiped the side of her face with her wrist. "I…am not," she corrected. Philip let his hand drop. Wishing to change the subject to something she wouldn't find upsetting, he fished around for something ordinary and harmless.

"What was that song you sang, back in the cave?"

She rubbed her face with his sleeve again. "My name," she said.

"I thought names were for family."

"They are," she replied, as though she saw no contradiction between the two ideas. She pulled his shirt closer around her, even though it was not cold. "It was…part of my name. The part I remember. I haven't used it for a while. And some parts I never learned." As though sensing the unspoken question in his eyes, she explained, "We grow into our names. Our elders teach us, slowly, over our first hundred years. But they were gone before I finished learning mine."

He watched as her fingers played absentmindedly with a few loose threads on his sleeve. She did not appear sad. He supposed after four centuries she had gotten used to living anonymously. Still, it must be a very lonely feeling, to wander four hundred years knowing only part of one's name.

"You can have mine, if you like," he offered.

She looked at him curiously. "You already gave me a name. Why would I need two?"

"No reason," he said with a shrug. She turned back to the horizon, clearly missing the implication of his words. He debated phrasing it again in a more concrete way, but he did not want to ruin the moment. Any relationship they could have would be temporary, at least on her end. Even if they had forty or fifty years together, he would be at most a brief flicker in the long centuries of her life. "It was beautiful," he said.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the crisp, salt-flavored air. "Syrena is beautiful too. I would like to keep it."

They watched the waves in silence for several minutes. She sat with her arms crossed over her knees while he reclined backwards on the soles of his hands, letting the sand seep between his knuckles. He was surprised how easy it felt with her, just to sit and say nothing. After a while she dug her foot into the sand, observing how it spilled off her toes as she flexed them upwards.

"You did want to leave eventually, though, didn't you? To go home."

His thoughts drifted for a moment to Cornwall, and his mother, and a small grey church on the cliffs. "My home is a long way from here. And I imagine it would feel very different, going back there now."

"But…" She drew in a sharp breath, as though the words were difficult to say. She locked her fingers together and set her shoulders. "But homes are important," she continued firmly. "So are people. Waiting for you."

Without thinking, he reached over and brushed a wisp of dark hair behind her ear. His fingers tarried unnecessarily on the curve of her neck. Searching for a way to justify the sudden closeness, he reached for the collar of his shirt and straightened it over her shoulder. "There is someone who waited for me here." He withdrew his hand, and she shivered. "Syrena," he said carefully. "Do you want me to go?"

She pulled her knees closer into her chest. For a few alternating seconds she looked like a very young girl, and then a very old woman, and he could not for the life of him decide which was nearer to the truth. Staring at her knees, she shook her head.

"And is there nowhere else you wish to go?" he asked.

Her eyes remained on the ground. "Not…without you."

Something in his chest relaxed. He wondered if she had any idea how terrified he had been, upon leaving the cave, that she had gone beyond recall. But then, perhaps she did understand. In the soft struggle for words, and the careful way she avoided his gaze, perhaps there lingered the same fear of rejection. "You didn't have to wander off so far. You might have stayed closer to the cave and spared us both the anxiety," he told her.

"I did not wish to impose, or…assume," she said in a low voice, twisting the folds of his shirt above her ankles. "You are a very kind person, Philip."

Philip heard both the compliment and the critique behind her words. That was the second time someone had pointed out to him the drawbacks of kindness. Nothing had ever made him second guess treating others with compassion, but it did make him more aware of his actions and the various ways they could be interpreted. In her case, though, he did not mind if she wanted to read something deeper into his behavior.

"I would rather be with you than anywhere else in the world," he said honestly. "But I would not wish to cause you pain, Syrena. Whatever time we could have would pass like mere days, to you. I'll grow old. Then I would leave you again, only that time it would be more painful, not less. Would you truly want that?" he asked. She averted her eyes.

"No. I would not," she answered quietly. Her cheeks colored again as she contemplated her toes. "That outcome is…not probable now." Philip started to open his mouth, but she pressed two fingers to his lips, cutting him off mid-breath. "Philip, please understand," she began quickly. "I would never have done this without asking you first, it was not something I wanted to burden you with, or…or use as leverage, but, Philip, you were lying there _dying_, and I didn't know what else-"

"Syrena," he interrupted, placing his hands over hers. The contact seemed to ease some of the tension in her face. He rolled his thumbs over her wrists and spoke again, more slowly. "How exactly did you save me?"

She swallowed and took a deep breath. "A mermaid's tear is a very powerful thing," she said. "And more powerful when given freely." She looked up at him, apprehensive and, he thought, a little sad. "You have a mermaid's tear in your blood, Philip. It means you will have to live longer now."

"I see," he replied. That answer did not sound nearly as bad as what he had been afraid of, given the distress in her voice. He rolled his shoulders backwards, wondering if he ought to feel any different. "How much longer?"

"Half, I think," she replied with a frown.

He looked at her askance. "Half," he repeated.

"Yes. Half," she told him. "Half of the years I would have lived after today are now yours."

She studied his face carefully, and Philip suddenly understood why she had been uneasy about telling him this. He felt his chest grow cold, and the joy he had experienced upon waking seemed to drain from the sky even before his mind could process what she had said. "I took…half the years of your life," he said slowly.

"I gave you half the years of my life. There is a difference," she said.

"Half your life," he repeated again, partly to himself. He had some difficulty wrapping his mind around the idea, and the part of his mind that could understand it recoiled. "You might just as well say I murdered you."

Syrena rolled her eyes. "No, you might not say that," she said patiently. "Philip, you know that."

Philip ran his fingers through his hair. She was right, he did know that. And she did look happy in the sunlight, an emotion he had rarely seen on her face. If she had chosen to sacrifice half her life for his, it could only mean she was happier with him than without him. Still, it felt like a bitter price to pay. "I would not have wanted you to do that," he said.

"I know," she answered. She looked down at her ankles again. Her behavior made much more sense to him now. She had not wished him to stay with her out of obligation, so she had put off telling him the full truth until she was certain he wanted her as much as she wanted him. There was a certain thoughtfulness behind it, but there was also a great risk. If he had gone back and tried to live as a normal clergyman, twenty or thirty years might have passed before he realized anything was odd. Perhaps then he might have suspected the cause and sought her out, but there was no guarantee he would have found her, even if he had a thousand years to search.

She shrugged and leaned sideways against his shoulder. "It's only seven or eight centuries," she murmured.

He draped his arm around her back. "You should have stayed closer to the cave," he growled softly into her ear. "I almost spent seven or eight centuries believing I'd lost you."

He looked down at the top of her head as another thought occurred to him. "There was the other tear. The one Blackbeard stole from you. What did that cost you?"

"Nothing," she replied. "That was not given. It was taken. Different rules."

Philip exhaled slowly, relieved. In a way, he supposed it was good they could never have children. It would be sad to watch them age and die while their parents remained young. He wondered if they too would grow old when their time began to run out, or if one day their hearts would simply stop beating at the same time.

"We won't be able to stay in one place very long. Ten or fifteen years at most," he said. "I'm afraid it would mean a life of wandering for you. I could never offer you a real home."

Syrena turned to him. Her eyes glowed implausibly as her face broke into the third real smile he had ever seen on her. Without any warning whatsoever, she threw her arms around his neck and knocked him to the ground. He thought just then she looked more like a giddy sixteen-year-old girl than a four-hundred-year-old water sprite. _She is not ageless,_ he realized. _She is every age in the world wrapped into one. _Then she pressed her mouth against his and for the next few minutes he stopped thinking about anything at all, except her lips and her tongue and her hair.

"That's all right," she told him when she broke away, her cheeks slightly flushed. "I really don't mind."

Philip sat up, laughing. "We'll just have to carry home with us, like snails," he said. Rolling his shoulders again, he stretched and stood. Then he turned and offered her a hand up.

"What," she asked, as he pulled her to her feet, "is a snail?"

"I'll show you next time I see one," he promised.

When they were both standing, he wrapped one arm around her waist while his other hand laced through her fingers. They made slow progress down the beach, but he did not mind. There would be time, he thought. Time enough to court her properly, and time enough to propose to her the way a man ought to propose to a woman. Thinking about all the places they would visit out of necessity made him feel suddenly exhilarated. They would have to keep to the coasts, but the coasts were long and many, and places could change. _How much good could a man do in eight hundred years?_

"It will be dark soon," Syrena said, in case he had forgotten. He could not help feeling a little sad at how quickly the day had slipped away from him. _There will be time_, he reminded himself. She bit her lip as her eyes scanned the cliffs and the sea, presumably thinking about shelter for the night. She glanced at him over her shoulder.

"May I?" she asked.

Philip nodded, and she slipped her arm inside his elbow. With unsteady feet they waded into the surging water, until the waves were deep enough for her to brush her lips against his and pull him under.


End file.
